Have configured standalone SQL servers with AlwaysOn Availability groups configured for HA. Now when adding two local disks to each server the disks are linked to the clustered storage subsystem not the local one which means I am unable to create a storage pool in Server manager as it states that a minimum if 3 are required to create a cluster storage pool. However I only want to create a local one - not a clustered pool.

Can you please provide a way to either disable the clustered storage subsystem (not need in this config as only a standalone SQL server is installed and I only want to use local disks) or, provide a way to change the link from the clustered storage subsystem to the local storage subsystem

Wanted to advise on this Auto pull of a New Disk in to Storage Pool and options to Get a Disk out of the Pool & back to the local system.

So far, I’ve checked in MSDN (How-to-remove-disks-from-primordial-pool) but it seems like currently there’s no option to do such;
My request is for a solution that enables to;
1. Skip disks out of the Pool Collection when enabling S2D.
2. Add new disks to the system with a choice of whether or not to put them in S2D or Pool.
3. Pull an existing disk(s) out of a Primordial Pool.

So far the workarounds (still looking for a better approach) I’ve are;
1. Avoid getting a disk pulled into Storage Space.
 Only when the disk has a volume.
 Works but we should ‘ve something better.
2. Add a disk into Primordial Pool but not to the user defined ones.
 Get-StorageSubSystem Cluster* | Set-StorageHealthSetting -Name "System.Storage.PhysicalDisk.AutoPool.Enabled" -Value False
 Works but we should ‘ve something that allows to keep disks totally out of the S2D thing (when a new disk is added to the system).
3. Configures the system to enable S2D to claim or not claim specific physical disks
 Set-ClusterStorageSpacesDirectDisk
 Still trying but this doesn’t works.

Remove-PhysicalDisk doesn't work as needed in Windows Server 2016 (like in 2012 R2).

We have Scale-Out File Server on Windows Server 2016. One storage pool with tiering and two way mirroring Virtual Disk. We have free space in pool specially for rebuild (size for more then 4 disk failure). We put one disk as Retire and took out from enclosure. Disk was Lost communication and Virtual Disk auto rebuild.
VirtualDisk shows as Healthy and OK and Repair runs without issues.
We add new HDD to enclosure and add it to pool. All looks good, healthy and OK.
But Remove-PhysicalDisk for old Retire disk doesn't work.

PS C:\Users\markadm> Remove-PhysicalDisk –StoragePool $Pool -PhysicalDisks $FailedDisk

Confirm
Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Removing a physical disk will cause problems with the fault tolerance capabilities of the following storage pool: "DHub
Storage Pool".
[Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is "Y"): y
Remove-PhysicalDisk : Failed
Activity ID: {b931fc7b-595d-40d3-8bdf-150061717020}
At line:1 char:1
+ Remove-PhysicalDisk –StoragePool $Pool -PhysicalDisks $FailedDisk
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (StorageWMI:ROOT/Microsoft/..._StorageCmdlets) [Remove-PhysicalDisk], CimE
xception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : StorageWMI 4,Remove-PhysicalDisk

I found same problem on a forum without any resolution: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/a7cdd6ce-db9c-47f8-b366-8d0b437a6bb8/removephysicaldisk-fails-with-failover-clustering-and-storage-spaces-in-windows-server-2016?forum=winserverfiles

I have a 3 node cluster setup and validated for Storage Spaces Direct. Each node has two 1TB SSDs and two 4TB HDDs (total 6 of each) all of which are cleaned of partitions and data (running on Dell HBA330s). All nodes have the required networking in places, are joined in a cluster and are running Server 2016 TP5 with the latest updates. Running cluster validation for Storage Spaces direct comes back with only the warning about 3 node cluster vs 4 (I only want mirrors, so 3 should work).

The problem is no matter what I do I cannot seem to get a proper virtual disk to create. I am trying to create a tiered disk with the SSD space as a hot tier and HDD space as a cold tier, each in a mirror. If I try this from Powershell I get "The storage pool does not have sufficient eligible resources for the creation of the specified virtual disk". From the GUI in failover cluster manager I can get to the Size screen, but the free space readings are always under a few GB and change each time I run the GUI.

Here is what I get on a fresh manual setup via PS:

PS C:\> Enable-ClusterStorageSpacesDirect -Autoconfig $false

Confirm
Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Performing operation 'Enable Cluster Storage Spaces Direct' on Target 'IGA-S2D'.
[Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is "Y"): y

PS C:\> Get-StorageSubSystem

FriendlyName HealthStatus OperationalStatus
------------ ------------ -----------------
Windows Storage on IGA-S2D1 Healthy OK
Clustered Windows Storage on IGA-S2D Healthy OK

PS C:\> New-StoragePool -StorageSubSystemFriendlyName "Clustered Windows Storage on IGA-S2D" -FriendlyName S2D -Provisio
ningTypeDefault Fixed -PhysicalDisk (Get-PhysicalDisk | ? CanPool -eq $true)

FriendlyName OperationalStatus HealthStatus IsPrimordial IsReadOnly
------------ ----------------- ------------ ------------ ----------
S2D OK Healthy False False

PS C:\> $pool = Get-StoragePool S2D
PS C:\> $pool | Get-PhysicalDisk | FT FriendlyName,OperationalStatus,HealthStatus,Usage,Size

FriendlyName OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage Size
------------ ----------------- ------------ ----- ----
ATA Samsung SSD 850 OK Healthy Auto-Select 1024081264640
ATA Samsung SSD 850 OK Healthy Auto-Select 1024081264640
ATA WDC WD4002FYYZ-0 OK Healthy Auto-Select 4000762036224
ATA WDC WD4002FYYZ-0 OK Healthy Auto-Select 4000762036224
ATA Samsung SSD 850 OK Healthy Auto-Select 1024081264640
ATA WDC WD4002FYYZ-0 OK Healthy Auto-Select 4000762036224
ATA WDC WD4002FYYZ-0 OK Healthy Auto-Select 4000762036224
ATA WDC WD4002FYYZ-0 OK Healthy Auto-Select 4000762036224
ATA WDC WD4002FYYZ-0 OK Healthy Auto-Select 4000762036224
ATA Samsung SSD 850 OK Healthy Auto-Select 1024081264640
ATA Samsung SSD 850 OK Healthy Auto-Select 1024081264640
ATA Samsung SSD 850 OK Healthy Auto-Select 1024081264640

PS C:\> New-StorageTier -StoragePoolUniqueID ($pool).UniqueID -FriendlyName SSD -MediaType SSD -ResiliencySettingName Mirror

ObjectId : {1}\\IGA-S2D\root/Microsoft/Windows/Storage/Providers_v2\SPACES_StorageTier.ObjectId="{6116563
c-31ed-4aa3-a54c-90034eddd5d3}:ST:{72ceedad-fa7c-4e66-9b0a-4c83782c8891}{fd5eeb52-486c-4dd9-8f
5c-7b0dfb52dcc8}"
PassThroughClass :
PassThroughIds :
PassThroughNamespace :
PassThroughServer :
UniqueId : {fd5eeb52-486c-4dd9-8f5c-7b0dfb52dcc8}
Description :
FriendlyName : SSD
Interleave : 262144
MediaType : SSD
NumberOfColumns : Auto
NumberOfGroups : 1
PhysicalDiskRedundancy : 1
ResiliencySettingName : Mirror
Size : 0
PSComputerName :

PS C:\> New-StorageTier -StoragePoolUniqueID ($pool).UniqueID -FriendlyName HDD -MediaType HDD -ResiliencySettingName Mirror

ObjectId : {1}\\IGA-S2D\root/Microsoft/Windows/Storage/Providers_v2\SPACES_StorageTier.ObjectId="{6116563
c-31ed-4aa3-a54c-90034eddd5d3}:ST:{72ceedad-fa7c-4e66-9b0a-4c83782c8891}{a9a4faab-0498-4b98-84
d4-950a35778d3c}"
PassThroughClass :
PassThroughIds :
PassThroughNamespace :
PassThroughServer :
UniqueId : {a9a4faab-0498-4b98-84d4-950a35778d3c}
Description :
FriendlyName : HDD
Interleave : 262144
MediaType : HDD
NumberOfColumns : Auto
NumberOfGroups : 1
PhysicalDiskRedundancy : 1
ResiliencySettingName : Mirror
Size : 0
PSComputerName :

PS C:\> New-Volume -StoragePool $pool -FriendlyName Mirror -FileSystem CSVFS_REFS -StorageTierFriendlyNames SSD,HDD -Sto
rageTierSizes 10GB, 100GB
Invoke-CimMethod : Not Supported

Extended information:
The storage pool does not have sufficient eligible resources for the creation of the specified virtual disk.

Recommended Actions:
- Choose a combination of FaultDomainAwareness and NumberOfDataCopies (or PhysicalDiskRedundancy) supported by the
storage pool.
- Choose a value for NumberOfColumns that is less than or equal to the number of physical disks in the storage fault
domain selected for the virtual disk.

Activity ID: {5daef213-f30c-4064-9531-a19be278f73c}
At C:\windows\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\Modules\Storage\StorageScripts.psm1:1047 char:27
+ ... $output = Invoke-CimMethod -CimSession $session -InputObject $pool ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (StorageWMI:) [Invoke-CimMethod], CimException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : StorageWMI 1,Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimCmdlets.InvokeCimMethodCommand

As you can see there should be more than enough disk space for the requested disk. It does not matter what sizes I use the same thing occurs.

If I allow the Enable-ClusterStorageSpacesDirect to auto configure it created a storage pool with my disks. The only difference is it attempts to assign all of the SSDs as Journal disks, which would be a waste. I still cant create any meaningful virtual disk with the auto-created pool, even if I change the SSDs back to auto from journal (tried both ways).

I have also tried all of this from the Failover cluster manager GUI and the Server Manager GUI. Both report odd free space numbers and even if I request a disk inside of those (1GB tiered disk) it will still fail.

The struggle is real, my friends. When you have a storage space with 4 disks and create a new virtual disk with parity over all those 4 physical disks, the data is spread out as you'd expect. But if you run low on space and you add another disk, the data already on the vhd cant benefit from the new disk. You have to create a new virtual disk and copy the data from the old to the new one. The problem is described here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2013/12/18/cannot-extend-simple-virtual-disk-in-windows-server-2012-r2.aspx

So please let us edit a virutal disk and add more physical disk the data should be saved on. Of coouse, some reorganization of the data is required and that may take some time. But atleast it is automated and does still work even if your actual disks are already almost full.

Recently I looked at using an iSCSI target VHDX on a storage space volume in a hosted environment where I don’t have access to Hyper-V, so can’t create a dedup VHDX that the hypervisor uses.

The reasons I did this was three-fold.
1. I could create a VHDX using an iSCSI target to a Windows Server running Storage Spaces – hence a VHDX file on a Windows volume that I could dedup.
2. I now had a dynamic disk so for a space hungry application like DPM that requires overallocation for replica and recovery point volumes, I could create a large disk that would only grow when backup data was written.
3. The hosted environment only provided me with 2TB virtual disks as their largest size so Storage Spaces provided me a way to create a big Windows volume.

Unfortunately for me the solution was not stable and the support team have pointed out that Storage Spaces are not supported for iSCSI targets.

Dedup is one part of the solution I was hoping to use and would like to know if there are any supported scenarios or features being thought of where this type of solution could be implemented in a hosted virtual platform rather than only on a Hyper-V platform (as per the article outlined here http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2015/05/05/data-deduplication-in-windows-server-technical-preview-2.aspx)

Basically the real reason I’m creating the large iSCSI target is to allow me to grow the VHDX as a dynamic disk past the NTFS volume size. For the DPM application it’s replica and recovery point volumes require over-allocation of the data I’m backing up so there is wasted space there (backup of x file data must be x+1) which can be saved by using a dynamic disk as the DPM replica volume grows it doesn’t grow the dynamic disk until backup data is written to the volume. Also when backing up similar (BMR examples) targets the replica volumes for those targets will have very similar data so Deduplication on the NTFS volume will save me space and the VHDX actual size will be much smaller.