Identifying the failed disk in Storage Spaces

[barryjo]

Lets say I have 6 identical hard drives set up as storage space. If one of the drives fails, and I get a notification to this failure, how do I identify the drive if they all look the same physically? Is each drive assigned a serial number when it is put into the storage space that can be used for identification or what???

 

[Trouble]

Read here and check the section labeled "How to identify a physical disk when an error occurs".
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...ces-responds-to-errors-on-physical-disks.aspx
Does that help you at all?

 

[barryjo]

Read here and check the section labeled "How to identify a physical disk when an error occurs".
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...ces-responds-to-errors-on-physical-disks.aspx
Does that help you at all?

Sort of. The article says that windows might alert you as to the disk GUID number that failed. If you have this recorded at the time you installed the disk then I guess the problem is solved but if not to bad.

One would think that failed disk physical identification would be a primary feature of Storage Spaces. I think MS dropped the ball here. Really, think about it. If you have a large number of identical drives and one fails you might get a message that a drive has failed, say a catastrophic failure, but which one??? Do you go and try replacing each drive one by one and see if the Storage Space fixes itself, if not then what. Hmmmmm... I was going to use SS but now I am not so sure. Hopefully MS will see this and provide an answer or perhaps another forum member.

 

[Trouble]

I don't see "Storage Spaces" being any different than any other software raid configuration, which frankly I would never consider using.
Before I retired from the industry anything (sql database servers) that I used raid on, was always a hardware raid configuration, where I could use the utilities provided to identify a failing raid drive usually by flashing that LED. They also usually contained their own audible alarm system to identify a fault either a drive or even a fan, accompanied by a status light indicator.
With the size and speed options available and the availability of drive imaging software to protect data, I'm not sure how I, as a home user could justify raid as a solution for anything that I need. Hardware or Software raid.
My sleepless nights, protecting data integrity, high availability, redundancy and failover protection are all thankfully behind me.

 

[barryjo]

I don't see "Storage Spaces" being any different than any other software raid configuration, which frankly I would never consider using.
Before I retired from the industry anything (sql database servers) that I used raid on, was always a hardware raid configuration, where I could use the utilities provided to identify a failing raid drive usually by flashing that LED. They also usually contained their own audible alarm system to identify a fault either a drive or even a fan, accompanied by a status light indicator.
With the size and speed options available and the availability of drive imaging software to protect data, I'm not sure how I, as a home user could justify raid as a solution for anything that I need. Hardware or Software raid.
My sleepless nights, protecting data integrity, high availability, redundancy and failover protection are all thankfully behind me.

The way I see it is that when you use backups or drive image or things like that, every time you add something to your storage drive you have to do another backup or drive image. The advantage of RAID or Storage Spaces as I see it is that you copy your data to the virtual drive and forget about it, much less hassle. But then, after a drive fails, how do you know which one is bad?

 

[Trouble]

Most top tier backup solutions including imaging provide a scheduling function supporting a vast array of timings of incremental and or differential backups including in some cases a non-stop sync option which will incrementally update the backup or image every five minutes if changes are made to the partition contents.
I'm not promoting or trying to sell you on changing your mind. It's just that in a lot of home user type of environments a backup solution is much easier to manage for the average user and might avoid some of the problems of managing a more sophisticated multi-disk array.

 

[barryjo]

Most top tier backup solutions including imaging provide a scheduling function supporting a vast array of timings of incremental and or differential backups including in some cases a non-stop sync option which will incrementally update the backup or image every five minutes if changes are made to the partition contents.
I'm not promoting or trying to sell you on changing your mind. It's just that in a lot of home user type of environments a backup solution is much easier to manage for the average user and might avoid some of the problems of managing a more sophisticated multi-disk array.

I really do appreciate you pointing out other options. What top tier backup software do you recommend?
I tried Acronis a while back and found it a bit complicated. I never had a good feeling that I had things set up properly.

In my case, I have a lot of videos, music, books, software, and etc that I want to safely keep. Perhaps about 3 Tb of stuff spread across about 10 disks on various computers. I just thought about getting an old computer and making it into a file server and then I could add all of my old hard disks to it by using USB docks. As you say, I might find this more complicated that using Acronis for example. I still worry about how to identify the bad drive if I use Storage Space.

 

[Trouble]

I use Acronis True Image exclusively in my household and have for well over a decade, long before they started naming their versions by year.
2014 on my main machine, 2015 on my wife's machine and the latest 2016 on my testbed machine running the latest preview build. I can't say that I like the interface since they changed it in 2015. They believed, I suspect, that if they dumbed it down, it might increase their sales. All the bits are still there, they just made it muppet proof so practically anyone can at least get a backup on hand.
I like it because after creating an image I can mount it from within the software and browse it just like any other drive on my computer. Play a music file, open a photograph, read a book, etc..... and confirm that the backup is what I expected and viable. Additionally the bootable rescue media is a life saver especially on my testbed computer where I bounce around a bit between builds and experiment fearlessly with various configuration settings.

Trust me, as a grandfather of six, who think it's a right and not a privilege to use Grandpa's and Grandma's computers whenever they visit.... If I thought there was a better way to safeguard against infection from virus, malware or ransomware, I'd certainly be employing it.

Many people sing the praises of Macrium Reflect, while others seem to like other alternatives. I listed some here https://www.windows10forums.com/threads/please-for-your-own-peace-of-mind.794/
While still others seem to like cloud based solutions like Carbonite or CrashPlan, although they are not intended to be used in the case of a baremetal restore type scenario, they seem to be great for data backup.

 

[barryjo]

I use Acronis True Image exclusively in my household and have for well over a decade, long before they started naming their versions by year.
2014 on my main machine, 2015 on my wife's machine and the latest 2016 on my testbed machine running the latest preview build. I can't say that I like the interface since they changed it in 2015. They believed, I suspect, that if they dumbed it down, it might increase their sales. All the bits are still there, they just made it muppet proof so practically anyone can at least get a backup on hand.
I like it because after creating an image I can mount it from within the software and browse it just like any other drive on my computer. Play a music file, open a photograph, read a book, etc..... and confirm that the backup is what I expected and viable. Additionally the bootable rescue media is a life saver especially on my testbed computer where I bounce around a bit between builds and experiment fearlessly with various configuration settings.

Trust me, as a grandfather of six, who think it's a right and not a privilege to use Grandpa's and Grandma's computers whenever they visit.... If I thought there was a better way to safeguard against infection from virus, malware or ransomware, I'd certainly be employing it.

Many people sing the praises of Macrium Reflect, while others seem to like other alternatives. I listed some here https://www.windows10forums.com/threads/please-for-your-own-peace-of-mind.794/
While still others seem to like cloud based solutions like Carbonite or CrashPlan, although they are not intended to be used in the case of a baremetal restore type scenario, they seem to be great for data backup.

One more question and I will leave you alone.

Lets say you got a movie from somewhere on your C drive and it was saved to your backup drive. Now you erase the movie from your C drive. Now your backup drive fails. How do you get your movie back?

This might seem unrealistic but a few years ago I had an external USB drive for backups and I accidentally knocked it on the floor. Goodbye USB disk and all my backups and data.

 

[Trouble]

Well...... I would suspect that in that scenario, you'd probably be out of luck.
Some folks, even more paranoid and obsessive than me backup their backups.
A pretty good application for cloud storage, where you are just uploading your .tib file to the cloud on a regular basis (schedule).
OR in the case of something like CrashPlan it allows you to backup to another computer on your own network or a buddy's computer over the internet.
There are probably any number of scenarios that you can come up with, where somehow someway, some data might be in jeopardy and of course, offsite backups are preferred incase of fire or other catastrophic events (severe storms, etc.,) but.....
I would hope that backing up your backups elsewhere, whether that be another physical drive, or if you have room in OneDrive, or Gdrive, or iCloud or DropBox or third party commercial solutions like CrashPlan or Carbonite would hopefully even protect you from yourself.

 

[barryjo]

Thanks for the ideas Noob. I am going to leave this thread open for a while ion the event someone knows how to identify the failed Storage Spaces drive.

 

[Pb2Au]

barryjo -- excellent question. I am studying how to create a "killer" backup strategy and am content for now to use Storage Spaces with automation of backups using Acronis True Image (other options and even freeware are available ... but Acronis is what I am using). Also, I backup to an external drive rack with 2 slots that connects via USB cable. This rack accepts 2.5" and 3.5" drives and with a push of a button will clone from the "source" slot to the "target" slot. Thus I can easily place a drive in a gun safe, safety deposity box, or friends house. Off site backup is important! Encrpytion can also be important depending upon if data is confidential. If just a collection of your OS, applications, and multimedia files ... why bother with encryption? I am also still considering adding a Cloud layer? Every layer must be tested and at some point yet decided ... enough is enough. A very important aspect is the manufacturer of the external dual bay has properly labeled the slots! Here is a link to that external gizmo >>

My configuration includes having Win 10 and applications on a small SSD, data on a 2nd SSD, and 2 WD 1 TB red series mirroring each other as the installed redundancy to both SSDs. I do enjoy the simplicity of keeping data physically separated ... but this practice is more of a luxury than a necessity.

Now to your important question! I struggled with precisely what you have asked and stumbled upon Power Shell that is included with Win 10. Administrator and IT type folks know instantly I am no guru if I am just now using this Power Shell tool! Fortunately there is a ton of tutorials for getting started with using Power Shell and only the very basics are needed for this task at hand. (Note: Power Shell is extremely "powerful" and combined with plug-ins and scripts can be used for forensics and managing systems remotely.)

The prompt looks like this >> PS C:\Users\u_name>

where "u_name" will reflect the user's name and having admin privilege is perhaps necessary.

The one command that is needed looks like this >> PS C:\Users\u_name> Get-PhysicalDisk

What is returned is a table that provides >>

FriendlyName SerialNumber CanPool OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage Size

Begin by making a copy of the above table. Then you can disconnect the SATA cable of one drive and see which gets kicked off (power down and reboot ... don't just yank a cable!) by running the above command again. Thus you can make a map of which serial number of drive is in which slot. Better yet, when you install the drives ... log the serial numbers of the drives to a map or simple sketch. You can also add friendly names like "Mirror Drive - Top Slot" to make that Power Shell table even easier to use.

I have just built my 1st system from scratch. Win 10, Storage Spaces, and Power Shell are all new for me. Hopefully you find all of the above consistent and easy to implement. Please comment on any aspect that can be improved upon ... as I am definitely in the learning mode. I am particularly looking forward to studying Power Shell. That will greatly expand my computer understanding.