Thankfully, you can avoid such scenarios and protect your data from drive failure using the Storage Spaces feature on Windows 11. And here’s a guide explaining everything you should know about using it on your PC.
What Are Storage Spaces in Windows 11 and Why Should You Create One
Storage Spaces is a feature built into Windows that lets you create an array/group of two or more physical hard drives to create a larger virtual drive or Storage Pool that you can use to store and protect your data. Virtual drives created with Storage Spaces may appear to function like standard hard drives, but the main reason you should create Storage Spaces on your Windows 11 PC is its resilience and scalability.
Resiliency refers to the ability of Storage Space to create one or more copies of data spread across multiple drives, helping protect your valuable data from drive failure. Scalability refers to the ability of a Storage Space to expand its combined storage space by adding new drives, essentially allowing you to expand the storage space of a virtual drive, which is difficult with physical disks.
How to Create a Storage Space on Windows 11
Creating a Storage Space might sound like a complicated process, but it’s easy to do so on Windows 11. Unlike the earlier versions of Windows that relied on the Control panel, Windows 11 makes creating Storage Spaces a much simpler task thanks to its new and improved Settings app. Here’s how you can easily create a Storage Space using the Settings app on your Windows 11 PC: Step 1: Press the Windows + I keys to access the Settings app. Then click on Storage. Step 2: From the Storage screen, click on the ‘Advanced storage settings’ drop-down. Step 3: From the ‘Advanced storage settings’ drop-down, click on ‘Storage Spaces.’ Step 4: Next, click on ‘Create a storage pool and storage space.’ Step 5: Type a name for the storage pool by clicking on the text box under Name. Then select the disks which you want to add to the pool. Step 6: After assigning a name to the storage pool and selecting the relevant disks, click Create. Windows will then create a Storage pool by merging multiple disks together. Also, Windows will ask you to create a Storage Space from it to enable the data protection mechanism. Step 7: Type a name for the storage space by clicking on the text box under Name. Then type in a number to determine the size of the Storage Space you will be creating. Step 8: Select the type of resiliency or data protection method by clicking on the ‘Two-way mirror’ drop-down. Here’s what each option does:
Selecting Simple allows you to merge two drives without any data protection. Selecting Two-way mirror creates a single mirrored copy of the data and allows you to merge two drives with data protection for up to single drive failure. Selecting Three-way mirror creates two mirrored copies of the data and allows you to merge five drives with data protection for up to two drive failures. Selecting Parity allows storing files on three drives along with parity information. Windows can use the parity information to rebuild the data in case of a single drive failure. Selecting Dual-parity allows storing files on seven drives with parity information. Windows can use the parity information to rebuild the data in case of dual drive failure.
Then click on Create to save the changes and create a new Storage Space. Step 9: Type a name for the New volume by clicking on the text box under Label. Then, click on the Drive Letter drop-down to assign a new Drive Letter to the New volume. Step 10: Click on the file system drop-down to select a file system for the New volume. Then, click on Format.
Select NTFS (New Technology File System) if you plan to use the Storage Space to store data with standard data protection against data corruption. Select ReFS (Resilient File System) if you plan to use the Storage space to store a large amount of data with improved data protection against data corruption.
After you click Format, a new disk partition with the drive letter D should appear in the File Explorer. Meanwhile, if a drive fails or you want to expand the storage space by adding a new hard drive, you can easily click the Physical disks drop-down and click on the ‘Add disks to storage pool’ button.
Protect Your Data From Sudden Drive Failure
The solutions mentioned above will help you store all your files on to the newly created Storage Space. It’s quite similar than getting yet another physical drive, except you get to organize the storage space more efficiently. Meanwhile, your Windows 11 PC should be ready to protect your precious data from a sudden drive failure. The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
