Data, as mentioned in earlier posts, are one of the most important things to look after in any server. Which is why, Microsoft has introduced Storage pools, which are very much like LVM in Linux. But is it really necessary? Do we need Storage pools? Well lets see how we store data in any traditional Windows server. We first add the hard-disk, format it, create partitions and then use it. Even if we use RAID, it will be on the same hard disk. If some data catches a virus,or hard disk fails, whole data would be compromised. This is where storage pools come in picture. Creating a storage pool, adding virtual disks and creating volumes will help you in ways you’ll never have imagined.
Every industry has lots of data to handle. By separating the traditional layers, we can increase flexibility and fault tolerance. We can create pools of similar data and group and organize them in a way we can easily access and manage. Once we have a pool, we can then create virtual disks out of it. Server will take these virtual disks as real, and treat them as physical drives. So if you add a physical disk and create 2 virtual drives, it will consider those 2 drives as 2 different physical drives. Then we can create volumes to handle them in a more organized way. But the largest amount of space Virtual disk can have, is the maximum space pool has. To increase it we need to add a new disk to pool. All this is demonstrated in the screenshots below. It may sound confusing now, but if we do it once it will seem all easy and fun to play with.
So lets see how to create and manage storage pools in Server 2012. Since this is little confusing and complicated topic, we’ll explain it in 3 stages.
1. Initializing, where you do the basic steps needed.
2. Creating Storage Pools.
3. Creating Virtual disks.
4. Creating volumes.
5. Adding extra storage.
1. Initialization:
- If you’re trying this on Virtual box or VMware, add new disks by clicking on the small icon.
Add new hard disks
- Add 3 new hard disks.
3 new hard disks
- In Server Manager, click on File and Storage Services.
Go to ‘File and Storage Services
- Select Storage pools. You’ll find a default pool here. Ignore it.
Go to Storage pools
2. Creating Storage pools.
- Right click –> ‘New Storage Pool’.
Right-click –> Add new storage pool
- Click on Next.
Click Next
- Enter the name of pool, and click Next.
Enter name for pool
- Select the disks you want in the pool. Click on Next.
Select hard disks to add in pool
- Check summary and verify your settings.
Confirm settings
- Click on close.
Click close
- Your new pool is ready!
New pool
3. Creating Virtual Disk.
- Under Virtual disk, click on ‘To create a virtual disk, start a new Virtual Disk Wizard’.
Click on ‘To create a virtual disk, start wizard’.
- In the wizard, click Next.
Click Next
- Select the pool in which you want to create virtual disks.
Select pool
- Enter the name of Virtual disk.
Enter name for virtual HD
- Select storage layout. Mirror is safe and give optimum result.
Select layout
- Select provisioning type.
Thin means, as you fill the data, it will start consuming space. Thick means once you allocate some space, all of it will be dedicated to it, irrespective of the disk being empty, half full or full.
If you assign 10GB in thin, it will take some MBs of space at the start, and will grow accordingly. In thick, it’ll use al the 10GB from your disk.
Select Provisioning type
- Enter size of Virtual Disk.
Enter size
- Confirm your settings.
Confirm settings
- Click on close.
Click close
- Your virtual disk is ready.
New Virtual disk
- Go to Tools –> Computer Management.
Tools –> Computer Management
- Select Device Manager. Click on cancel.
Click cancel if it asks to add new disk
- The 20GB virtual disk we created using 2 physical disks is now visible as one physical disk. But it is ‘unallocated space’. We need to create a volume to use it.
Virtual disk from 2 physical disks
4. Creating Volumes.
- Right click on your Virtual Hard disk –> New Volume.
Right click –> New volume
- Click Next.
Click Next
- Select disk and click on Next.
Select disk
- Enter size of volume.
Enter size of volume
- Assign drive letter.
Assign letter to drive
- Select File system.
Select file system
- Confirm your settings and click Create.
Summary of settings
- Click Close.
Click close
- You can now use the volume to store data.
New Volume
5. Adding extra storage.
Remember, all this is in pool. So if we need additional storage space, we need to add a disk in pool first, then extend virtual disk and then increase the volume.
- Right-click on your pool –> Add physical disk.
Right-click –> Add physical disk
- The remaining disks will appear in the text box. Select the ones you wish to add.
Select hard disk you want to add
- Right-click on volume –> Extend Volume.
Right-click –> Extend virtual hard disk
- Enter mew size. If current size is 20GB, and enter 40GB, new size will be 40GB and not 20+40GB.
Enter size
- Check size virtual disk.
New size
- Go to Volumes. Right-click –> Extend volume.
Volumes –> Extend volume
- Enter size.
Enter size
- Verify.
New size of volume
- Your disk is now extended to a larger size.
Virtual Drive
One thing to remember here is, you can only add disks through Server Manager. To shrink volume, you’ll need to go to ‘Storage Management’ in Computer Management.
Shrink size of volume