WS2012 R2 Essentials - Storage Spaces

[Circaflex]

Hey guys I just got my Server 2012 R2 Essentials up and running and I have run into this strange problem, or strange to me because I dont understand why its happening.

 

I have 3 x 2TB drives and 1 500GB drive in my server for storage, OS runs off an SSD

 

I am getting a low capacity warning when I am trying to migrate my old data from my WHSv1, the data is roughly 2TB. How can i fix this without adding more drives to the server? If i have to kill the pool and start over not a problem, as my server is backed up to an external drive.

 

Should i switch to a different program? Drivepool by stablebit or drivebender?

 

Here is a photo

 

http://sdrv.ms/1dFbBye

[_neutrino Veteran]

looks like the 500Gb drive is at capacity and the low warning is about that drive in particular.

[Circaflex]

Which I would be fine with but this stops me from adding more data into the Storage Pool on the server, I get the popup saying there is not enough space on the disk with roughly 1TB left of stuff to move

[spaceelf]

Which I would be fine with but this stops me from adding more data into the Storage Pool on the server, I get the popup saying there is not enough space on the disk with roughly 1TB left of stuff to move

Apparently it's trying to use the same amount of data on every drive.  465x4=1860

 

I don't know the other types of storage spaces very well, but you might try Parity or Simple.

[Circaflex]

OK so i nuked the storage space and recreated but it never gives me any options, it just adds them to a two-way mirror pool and i cant change that. Ill look around and see if there is some option somewhere

[jakem1]

I made a similar mistake when I first set up my storage space.  You have to forget everything you know about how WHSv1's drive extender worked because storage spaces aren't as flexible. 

 

As Geoffrey B said, the 500GB drive is causing you problems because it's limiting the amount of available space you can use in your storage space.  I would exclude this drive from the pool and just create a storage space with the 2TB drives. It's up to you how you configure this but you could create a parity space that would give you 4TB of usable space with one drive dedicated to parity.  Unlike drive extender, Storage spaces work best if you group drives with similar capacities together.

[Circaflex]

Thanks for the explanation, i was given that advice on another forum as well. I was told to look into drive bender and drivepool (i think im going to try this one) as its more closely related to the way whs1 worked. Thanks again jakem1 for the easy explanation.