Set up raid with external drives????

Hello, Harlan Sherriff

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

Generally Speaking, setting up a RAID array with external drives in Windows 11 using Disk Management can be a bit tricky because Windows generally expects internal drives for RAID configurations. However, if you want to mirror your data across those two external drives, you can try using Windows Storage Spaces, which provides a software-based RAID solution. Here's how you can do it:

Note: Make sure to back up any data on those drives before proceeding because setting up RAID can result in data loss if not done correctly.

1. Attach External HDD or Use Virtual HDD:

• To attach an external hard drive, simply connect it to your computer using the appropriate cable.

• To use a virtual hard disk (VHD), follow the steps below:
  

2. Open Disk Management: You can open Disk Management in Windows 11 using one of the following methods

• Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box, type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter.

• Right-click on the Start menu, and choose "Disk Management."

3. Create VHD: In Disk Management, follow these steps to create a virtual hard disk (VHD):

• In the Disk Management window, click on "Action" in the menu bar.

• Select "Create VHD" from the dropdown menu. This will open a dialog box.

  • In the "Create and Attach Virtual Hard Disk" window:

    • Click the "Browse" button to choose the location where you want to save the VHD.

    • Specify the size of the virtual hard disk in the "Size" field. Ensure you have enough space for your needs.

    • Select "VHDX" as the type of virtual hard disk. VHDX is recommended for its improved features and performance over VHD.

    • Choose a location for your VHD and give it a name.

    • Choose whether to create a dynamically expanding or fixed-size VHD. The former consumes only as much space as needed, while the latter pre-allocates the full size.

    • Click "OK" to create the VHD. Click here to view it

4. Configure RAID in Advanced Storage Settings:

• After attaching your external hard drives or creating your VHDs, you can configure RAID using the following steps:

  • Press Win + I to open the Windows Settings.

  • Go to "System" and select "Storage."

  • Under "Advanced storage settings," click on "Storage Spaces." Click here to view it.

• In the Storage Spaces window:

  • Click "Add a new Storage Pool."

• Follow the prompts to create a storage pool by combining your disks, configuring the RAID settings (e.g., Mirror for RAID 1), and specifying the size.

• Choose the file system for your RAID array (usually NTFS).

• Click "Create" to create the RAID volume. Click here to view it, and here is another reference picture.

Now you have created a storage pool using either external hard drives or virtual hard disks in Windows 11. Please note that while this method allows you to create a RAID-like configuration using Windows Storage Spaces, it's not the same as hardware RAID and may not provide identical performance or features. Always ensure you have backups of your important data.

Hope it helps! If any update, welcome to share with us.

Best regards,

Chandy |Microsoft Community Support Specialist

That works with some strange effects:

I set one hdd to J the other to K

The RAID array is L

I see all three under “This PC”

I can open J and see what is in it, but when I try to open K, I get an error message “The disk image isn’t initialized, contains partitions that aren’t recognizable, or contains volumes that haven’t been assigned drive letters……..”

When I go into storage spaces and storage pool, both virtual disks show same % used.

Also, I can transfer data directly to J but not K and the % used shown in storage pool differs from J and K. J shows the extra data.

Also both J and K show up twice in This PC.

It seems to work fine as long as I remember not to xfer data to J.

The behavior you're experiencing with your virtual disks and drive letters can be a bit confusing, but it's likely due to how Windows manages virtual disks and storage pools. Let me explain the situation and suggest some solutions:

1. Drive Letter Issues:

   • When you create virtual disks in Windows, they may not always get assigned drive letters automatically.

   • The error message you see when trying to access drive K indicates that Windows might not recognize the partition on that virtual disk, or it doesn't have an assigned drive letter.

   To resolve this issue:

   • Open Disk Management (), and you should see the virtual disks without drive letters.diskmgmt.msc

   • Right-click on the disk that doesn't have a drive letter (in your case, K), and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths."

   • Assign a drive letter to the virtual disk.

2. Storage Spaces and % Used:

   • Storage Spaces might not immediately update the % used information after data transfers.

   • It's possible that the discrepancy in % used is due to Windows not recognizing the full capacity of the virtual disks.

   To address this issue:

   • Try running a manual optimization of the storage pool to update the usage statistics. In Storage Spaces, select your storage pool, and look for an option like "Optimize drive usage" or "Optimize pool."

   • You can also try restarting your computer to see if the usage information gets updated.

3. Multiple Entries in This PC:

   • Having virtual disks show up twice in This PC can be caused by Windows not cleaning up properly after creating the virtual disks.

   To clean up the entries:

   • Open Disk Management and ensure that there are no duplicate entries for your virtual disks.

   • Right-click and delete any unnecessary or duplicate partitions or disks.

4. Transferring Data:

   • You should be able to transfer data to both virtual disks (J and K) without issues once they have drive letters and are properly recognized by Windows.

By following these steps, you should be able to resolve the issues you're facing with your virtual disks and drive letters. Remember to back up any important data before making significant changes to your storage configuration.

Feel free to let me know if you got any further updates, thank :)

I found out that in some instances the GUI is not your friend and you have to use powershell to create your RAID with external USB drives. Obviously with your configuration (2 disks) you can only get RAID 0 or RAID 1. You cannot use dynamic disks to RAID in your case it works only for internal drives. You need to use storage space and virtual hard drive. You'll find plenty of articles to help using "Storage space powershell".

I couldn't create a storage space on my 2022 server with Terramaster 6 bay DAS but following different articles I was able to get a RAID 5 configuration which gives me 500MB R/W through USB C 3.2 (10Gbps).

Hope that helps.

Hi Chandy,

Thank you for the details, but...

It appears that the proposed solution doesn't meet our requirements.

"Specify the size of the virtual hard disk in the "Size" field. Ensure you have enough space for your needs."

I have two external HDDs too, each with a capacity of 4TB. My goal is to create an 8TB RAID 0 configuration by combining these two drives. However, when attempting to set up a VHDX, I encounter limitations in allocating space beyond the maximum capacity of one HDD, which is 4TB.

Could you please provide guidance on how to establish an 8TB RAID 0 VHDX by utilizing both 4TB HDDs? Thank you in advance.