This is just an annoying quick bug I came across today while messing with Windows 2012 Storage Spaces. The bug apparently affects a significant number of RAID controllers, including the embedded AMD SATA controller in the HP Microserver N36L which is what I am currently in the process of configuring as a remote personal backup server.
As you can see from the screenshot below, the main symptom is that it effectively causes the storage spaces UI not to show all of the available disks in the primordial storage pool. There are actually 3 1TB physical drives in the server below, however only a single drive appears (which can be any one of the three drives in slot 2/3/4 when I refresh the view):
Primordial storage space only showing a single physical drive
This is caused by the RAID controller presenting all disks with the same UniqueID. You can list your UniqueIDs by typing the following command into a PowerShell window:
Get-PhysicalDisk | ft FriendlyName, UniqueId, ObjectId, BusType –auto
The result looks something like this:
3 identical UniqueIDs
This is an annoying bug, but a simple workaround is available for Microserver users, and I’m sure a similar approach could be taken on other platforms. Simply load up the AMD RAIDXpert UI (or boot into the BIOS) and configure each individual drive as a single RAID Ready device as follows:
Use AMD RAIDXpert to create individual RAID Ready drives
Complete RAID Ready Drive List
This causes the RAID controller to present an individual UniqueID for each drive through to the OS:
Actually unique UniqueIDs!
You can then go ahead and create your storage space as normal from the primordial pool:
Primordial Storage Space now shows all 3 physical drives
Hope this helps a few people as it drove me potty before I worked out what was going on!
Bonus Tip: Another wee tip I read recently is that storage spaces are NOT supported inside a virtual machine. I know you would need a quite specific (read: odd) use case to even consider doing this, just don’t! 🙂
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