Storage management is a critical topic in almost any networked enterprise of any size. An essential part of this topic is to create and configure storage pools. A storage pool enables us to combine multiple dynamic disks as a single large space. We can then create as many virtual disks as we want from that storage pool. We can further partition those virtual disks into multiple volumes. Hence, It is an important and straightforward topic we will cover in this article, mainly focusing on how we can create and configure a storage pool on Windows Server 2022.

In addition to the above topics, we will first discuss how to add virtual disks on VMware virtual machines. This is a prerequisite for configuring storage pools using Windows Server 2022 virtual machine on a VMware workstation, and you do not have multiple physical disks. Briefly saying, we will walk through the followings:

• How to add virtual disks on VMware virtual machine.
• How to create a storage pool on Windows Server 2022
• And how to create virtual disks from the storage pool

If you already know any of the above sections, you can skip them and continue with the section you do not know.

Adding Virtual Disks on Windows Server 2022 VMware Virtual Machine

Before creating and configuring Storage Pools on a Windows Server 2022 VMware virtual machine, We need to add at least two virtual disks. Follow the below steps to do so.

• Shut down your Server 2022 machine if it is running.
• Go to your virtual machine settings. To do so, select the virtual machine, and open the Edit virtual machine settings option.

• On the Hardware tab of the Settings window, click on Add. Choose Hard Disk on the new wizard, and click on Next, afterwards.

• Choose the SCSI option as disk type, and click on Next.

• Check the Create a new virtual disk option and click on Next.

• Specify the maximum disk size for your virtual hard disk. Then, select the Split virtual disk into multiple files. Click on Next, finally.

• Browse for the location where you intend to save the disk files. You can also modify the disk name here. Once set, click on Finish.

To this point, we have added a new virtual disk to our Windows Server 2022 virtual machine. We need at least two disks to create a Storage Pool as we mentioned above. So, following the above steps, add a new virtual disk, and then continue to the next section.

You may also like to read How To Create A Virtual Machine In VMWare.

Creating a Storage Pool on Windows Server 2022

As we said previously, we can combine multiple dynamic disks in one place with a storage pool. We provided the prerequisite in the first section. In this section, we go through the steps to create and configure a storage pool on Windows Server 2022.

• Open Server Manager on your Windows Server 2022.
• On the left-hand panel, open the File and Storage Services option.

• Select the Storage Pools from the menu. We can see three sections: Storage Pools on the top, Physical Disks on the bottom-right, and Virtual Disks on the bottom-left area. The way the whole process works is to create a pool from the Physical Disks first. Then we can create virtual disks from our storage pool and they will appear in the Virtual Disks section.

• To create a new storage pool, click on the Tasks dropdown menu in the Physical Disks area, and click on New Storage Pool.

• Click next on the Before You Begin section. Name the pool, and click on Next.

• You can select the disks you use for your storage pool in the Physical Disks section. Choose the disks and click on Next.

• Now, check the summary of the settings. Click on Next if everything is set correctly. Use the Previous button to go back and bring changes if something goes wrong. Finally, click on Close on the Result section.

We have built our new storage pool from two disks. The pool we created now shows up in the Storage Pools area, and we can create virtual disks from our pool.

Creating Virtual Disks from a Storage Pool

After creating a storage pool on Windows Server 2022, we can make several virtual disks of varying sizes from it. Let’s walk through the steps.

• Right-click on the intended storage pool and select New Virtual Disk.

• Select the storage pool from the list, and click on OK.

• Click Next on the Before You Begin window. Put the name for your virtual disk, and click Next.

• Select the storage layout that best suits your needs, then click on Next afterwards.

• Choose the provisioning type for your disk, and click on Next. The Thin is always selected as far as it is dynamic. That means the Thin type consumes its defined space only when needed. On the other hand, the Fixed type will consume the whole space designated for it from the very beginning.

• The next step is to specify the size of your disk. Specify it and click on Next. The Maximum size option is greyed out as we chose Thin as the provisioning type.

• Now, check out the summary of the settings you defined for your disk. You could use the Previous button to go back and correct the settings if they went wrong. Or click on Create to create the disk. Click on the Close button on the next page.

It was all about how we could create a virtual disk from the existing storage pool on Windows Server 2022. After you have made it, you can see it added to the Virtual Disks area, and you can partition it into volumes.

You may also look for How To Solve Disabled Extend Volume Option In Windows 11?

Summary

So far in this article, we discussed how we could create and configure a storage pool on Windows Server 2022. As we need at least two disks to do so, we first added two virtual disks for our Server VMware virtual machine. Then, we stepped through the steps of creating our storage pool. Consequently, we created a virtual disk from the storage pool.

I hope this article can help you find your answer. If you have any further questions, you can always share us in the comment section.

The post How to Create and Configure Storage Pool on Windows Server 2022 appeared first on TECHNIG.

Disk space management is a frequently required knowledge for a Windows user. It deals with the basic to advanced level operations performed on your computer’s disk space, such as creating new volumes, extending volume size, converting between Dynamic and Basic types, and so forth. While we rarely use those advanced operations, there are basic disk operations we most often use.

I will cover the following basic but frequently used topics throughout this article.

• How to create a new volume (Shrink Volume).
• How to increase volume size (Extend Volume).
• And, How to solve a disabled/greyed Extend Volume option.

The instruction works on Windows 8 and above. Note that if you already know any section, you may skip it and continue with the sections you are seeking answers to.

Note: I will accomplish the above topics graphically. Read Managing Hard Disks using PowerShell to manage disks with Powershell, and How To Manage Hard Disks With Command In Windows 10 to manage disks with Command.

Manage Disk on Windows | Shrink New Volume

Follow the steps below to shrink a new volume.

• Go to disk management window: press the Windows Key + R button on your keyboard to open the Run box. Type diskmgmt.msc in the Run Dialog Box and click Enter. Or right-click on This PC icon on your Desktop, click on the Manage option from the menu, and click on Storage >> Disk Management on the computer management window.

• On the Disk Management window, you can see the list of disks and their partitions already available. To create a new volume, right-click on the volume you want to create a new one from, and click on Shrink Volume from the menu. In my case, it is the partition with the volume letter (C:).

• Enter the storage amount of the new volume in MB inside the relevant box. In my case 71,680 MBs for a new volume of 70 GBs space.

• You have shrunk the volume by now. You can see the new unallocated volume on the right side of the volume you created from. To make it usable, you need to allocate it. To do so, right-click on it and select the New Simple Volume option.

• Click Next on the New Simple Volume wizard. On the next window, specify the volume size and click on the Next button. Assign a drive letter on the next page and continue by clicking on the Next button.

• On the Format Partition window, select the file system, type the volume label and click on Next. Finally, click on Finish in the last window.

Now, you must see your new volume colour changed to blue, and it is usable on your computer.

Manage Disk on Windows | Extend Volume Size

It sometimes happens that you need to extend a volume size. For example, your C drive, which stores the operating system, does not have space for additional software you want to install. In such cases, you need to extend its space from other volumes. Follow the below simple steps to extend a volume size.

• On the Disk Management window, right-click on the volume you want to extend its size and click on the Extend Volume option. In my case it is volume C. Prior to this, an unallocated volume must exist on the right side of it, or else the option will be greyed and disabled. Create an unallocated volume using Shrink Volume (described above) and delete that new volume.

• Click Next on the first window that appears. On the Select Disks window, choose the volume(s) you want to add from the Available box at the left and add to the Selected box at the right (see the picture) Consequently, click on the Next button. Finally, click on the Finish button on the last window.

Check the partition you extended. You can see that the volume size increased by the size of the volume you added.

Why Extend Volume option is disabled/greyed?

As we mentioned earlier, sometimes the Extend Volume option is not active, which is not working. It happens when you do not have an unallocated volume at the right of the volume you want to extend. You can usually solve it by shrinking and deleting the volume at the right. But what if the volume is not shrinkable and does not give you an option? This issue appears when there are system-reserved partition(s) or another unchangeable volume(s) at the right side of the volume you extend.

Solutions to disabled/greyed Extend Volume option?

One solution that I cover here is to use third-party software. There is much software out there, but I have used user-friendly software: EaseUS Partition Master.

Follow the below steps to extend your volume space using Ease Partition Master.

• Download the software from HERE, and install it on your computer.

• Launch the software and click on Start Now button.

• The software lists all partitions on your computer (below picture). Let’s go with extending my C volume by space E partition.

• First, you need to delete the E volume to make it unallocated. Right-click on it, and select Delete. Click OK on the confirmation window. The operation will be added to the operation button with a play icon on the top right corner. Click on it to execute the operation and click OK. Wait until it finishes the operation, and click on Finish, afterwards.

• Now, right-click on the target volume (the volume you want to extend), in my case C partition. Choose the Resize/Move option. A new window will appear on which you can select the partition you want. Drag the dot on the tails or head to extend the volume size from the two sides. Look at the visual changes on the top of the window while dragging the handles, and extend the volume accordingly. Even if there are unchangeable volumes in between the two partitions, the software detects them and extends the volume. Click OK when everything is set.

• The operation is added to the Execute Operation button. Click on Execute Operation to run it, and click on OK, consequently.

Some operations in EaseUS Partition Master may require a reboot to apply. Set the operations logically and execute them.

Conclusion

We have reached the end of this article. So far, we have discussed managing disk space on Windows 8, 8.1, 10, and 11. A tricky issue was to solve greyed/disabled extend volume option that we solved using EaseUS Partition Master.

I hope you found it helpful. If you have any questions regarding disk management, please share me in the comment section below.

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