1.2 Creating virtual disks
Before you can create a virtual disk, you must create at least
one storage pool on your file server. Continuing from the procedure
that was started in the previous section, Figure 3 shows that
file server HOST7 now has a storage pool named Archive Pool that has
a capacity of 696 GBs but no virtual disks yet.
Note
Storage-pool capacity
When the storage pool named Archive Pool was created in this
lesson’s example, one of the three physical disks was assigned the
Hot Spare role. One might expect, then, that the total capacity of
the pool would be displayed as 2 x 232 GBs = 464 GBs, and not as
696 GBs as shown in Figure 3. However,
because the Hot Spare disk can be re-allocated as Automatic if
needed, the capacity of the pool is displayed as 696 GBs, not 464
GBs.
To create a new virtual disk from a storage pool using Server
Manager, perform the following steps:
-
Launch the New Virtual Disk Wizard—for example, by
right-clicking on the Archive Pool item shown as selected in
Figure 3.
-
Select the storage pool from which you want to create your
new virtual disk. In this example, you are using Archive
Pool.
-
Give your new virtual disk a descriptive name, such as
“Archive Disk,” that identifies the purpose of the new
disk.
-
Select the storage layout you want to use for the new
virtual disk. Because Archive Pool has more than one physical
disk in it, you can choose either Simple, Mirror, or Parity as
the storage layout for your new virtual disk. Because the disk
in this example will be used to store valuable company
information, select Mirror for its storage layout as shown in
Figure 4.
-
Select the provisioning type you want to use for the new
virtual disk. Because the disk in this example will be used for
archival storage of company information that might grow over
time, select Thin for the provisioning type.
-
Specify the size of the new virtual disk you are creating
as shown in Figure 5. The
possible size you can specify depends on the type of
provisioning—namely:
-
If you selected Fixed as the provisioning type, you
can either select Maximum Size to allow Storage Spaces to
create a virtual disk that has the maximum capacity of the
storage pool, or you can specify the size in MBs, GBs, or
TBs that you want your virtual disk to be. If you specify a
size, you have the option of selecting the Create The
Largest Virtual Disk Possible, Up To The Specified Size
check box, which will limit the size of your new disk if you
specify a value too large for the selected storage
pool.
-
If you selected Thin as the provisioning type, you
only have the option of specifying the size in MBs, GBs, or
TBs that you want your virtual disk to be.
In this example, specify 2 TBs as the maximum size of the
new virtual disk. This large value is possible for this server
only because you selected Thin as the provisioning type.
-
Complete the remaining steps of the wizard to create the
new virtual disk.
Alternatively, you could use Windows PowerShell to create the
same virtual disk. Begin by using the New-VirtualDisk cmdlet to
create the new virtual disk:
PS C:\> New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName "Archive Pool" `
-FriendlyName "Archive Disk" -ResiliencySettingName Mirror -ProvisioningType Thin `
-Size 2TB
FriendlyName ResiliencySettingName OperationalStatus HealthStatus IsManualAttach Size
------------ ------------------- ----------------- ------------ -------------- ----
Archive Disk Mirror OK Healthy False 2 TB
Any new virtual disk created this way must then be initialized
(brought online) before it can be used. You can use the Get-Disk
cmdlet to display more information about the disks (physical and
virtual) on the server:
PS C:\> Get-Disk
Number Friendly Name OperationalStatus Total Size Partition Style
------ ------------- ----------------- ---------- ---------------
0 ATA ST3250310NS SCSI Disk Device Online 232.83 GB MBR
4 Microsoft Storage Space Device Offline 2 TB RAW
From the command output just shown, you can see that the
number of the new virtual disk is 4. You will use this information
with the Initialize-Disk cmdlet as follows:
PS C:\> Initialize-Disk -Number 4
By default, the Initialize-Disk cmdlet creates a GUID
Partition Table (GPT) type of disk:
PS C:\> Get-Disk -Number 4
Number Friendly Name OperationalStatus Total Size Partition Style
------ ------------- ----------------- ---------- ---------------
4 Microsoft Storage Space Device Online 2 TB GPT
If you want to, you can use the
–PartitionStyle parameter of the
Initialize-Disk cmdlet to create virtual disks of the Master Boot
Record (MBR) type; however, for virtual disks larger than 2 TBs in
size, the GPT type must be used.
