How to create pool on Storage Spaces for Windows 11

On Windows 11, Storage Spaces is a feature that allows you to group physical drives into one logical storage you can expand, adding more drives and protecting the data with different protection levels.

Storage Spaces supports several RAID-like features, including “simple” to increase storage performance, but does not protect files against hardware failure (requires two drives minimum). On the other hand, the “two-way mirror” requires two drives and offers protection against failures since the data is copied in multiple drives, and there is a “three-way mirror,” but it requires five drives.

The storage feature also offers the “parity” resiliency option, which requires at least three drives, and it provides storage efficiency and protection against failures by copying data in multiple places. If you want to protect data against two drive failures, the “dual parity” option requires at least seven drives.

In this guide, you will learn how to create a pool and storage space using the Control Panel and the modern Storage Spaces experience in the Settings app of Windows 11. (The Control Panel instructions will also apply to older versions, such as Windows 8 and 7.)

• Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Settings
• Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Control Panel

Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Settings

To create a pool with Storage Spaces on Windows 11, use these steps:

1. Open Settings on Windows 11.

2. Click on System.

3. Click the Storage page on the right side.

4. Under the “Storage management” section, click the Storage Spaces option.

   

5. Click the Add button in the “Add a new Storage Pool” setting.

   

6. Confirm a descriptive name for the storage pool.

7. Select the drives to create a storage pool on Windows 11.

   Quick tip: The required number of drives will depend on the resiliency level you want to use.

8. Click the Create button.

9. Under the “Name” section, confirm a name for the storage space.

   

10. Under the “Size & resiliency” section, specify the space size.

    Quick tip: If you want to dedicate all the available capacity to the storage space, you can leave the default size. You can also make the storage larger, and when the space starts to run low, you can add more drives to extend the storage.

11. Use the drop-down menu and select the resiliency option, including:

    • Simple – requires at least two drives, and no data protection will be available.
    • Two-way mirror – requires at least two drives, and there is data protection in case of one drive failure.
    • Three-way mirror – requires at least five drives and offers data protection against up to two drive failures.
    • Parity – requires three drives and offers data protection and performance.
    • Dual Parity – requires at least seven drives, offering data protection with up to two drive failures and performance.

    

12. Click the Create button.

13. Specify a label for the drive on the “New volume” page.

14. Specify a letter for the drive.

15. Select the NTFS option for the file system.

    Quick tip: You can also access the Advanced settings to mount the drive as a folder, specify the allocation unit size, and enable compression.

    

16. Click the Format button.

Once you complete the steps, the new drive will appear in File Explorer to store data. If a drive fails, the storage and data will be available, but you will need to replace the hard drive in question, as a second drive failure will cause data loss.

Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Control Panel

To create your first drive pool and space with Control Panel, use these steps:

1. Open Control Panel.

2. Click on System and Security.

3. Click the Storage Spaces option.

   

4. Click the Create a new pool and storage space option from the left navigation pane.

   

5. Select the drives that will be participating in the pool.

   

6. Click the Create pool button.

7. Under the “Name and drive letter” section, confirm a name for the storage space.

8. Specify a letter for drive.

9. Select the NTFS option for the file system.

10. Under the “Resiliency” section, use the drop-down menu, and select the resiliency option, including Simple, Two-way mirror, Three-way mirror, Parity, or Dual Parity.

11. Under the “Size” section, specify the size of the space.

    

12. Click the Create storage space button.

After you complete the steps, the pool and space will be configured, creating a new drive available in File Explorer with the specified letter and label.