Creating Storage Pools in Windows Server

This covers setting up new disks to be part of a Storage Pool on Windows Server.

BRINGING THE DISKS ONLINE

Within Server Manager, the Disks section within Files and Storage Servers will show your new disks. You will need to bring them online by right-clicking and selecting 'Bring Online'.

CREATING THE STORAGE POOL

Once your disks are online, we can pool these disks together. Under Storage Pools in Files and Storage Services you can right-click in the storage pools area and select 'New Storage Pool'. This will open the Storage Pool wizard.

Within the wizard, set a name for the Storage Pool.

Now select the disks you wish to be part of the pool.

Once the wizard completes, you will want to tick the 'Create a virtual disk when the wizard closes' option to automatically open the virtual disk creation wizard.

CREATING A VIRTUAL DISK

Now we have the pool created, we need to create some virtual disks. If you have ticked the option in the last step you should see the virtual disk wizard. Follow through the wizard giving your disk a name, setting the desired options, etc. 

After creating your disk, the option to automatically open the volume creation wizard should already be selected.

CREATING VOLUMES ON THOSE DISKS

We have a storage pool and disks but we now need volumes on to make these functional. The volume creation wizard should have opened after the last step. Follow through the wizard selecting the desired disk, name the volume, select a drive letter and file system settings.

At the end you will be able to see the volumes you have created under Volumes on File and Storage Settings as shown below.

Under Disks on Storage Pools you will also be able to see the created disks.