SpaceCoastLife
asked on
Spanning External Drives
I recently purchased 2 of Seagate's newer releases - Seagate Expandable 8tb external drives to back up my media. I was using Amazon Drive, backing up to the cloud but their prices increased by a factor of almost 10 so I started looking for alternatives.
My Backup software (iDrive) only looks at one drive at a time which my media won't fit on so I'm looking for a "Volume" solution where you can group multiple backup drives but have it "appear" to Windows 10 as only one drive.
That brought me to the subject of "Spanning" drives. A term I was completely unfamiliar with, but from it's description, sounded exactly like what I was looking for so I thought I'd give it a try.
Using Disk Manager:
Step 1 in the process is to delete the existing volume.
Step 2 in the process is to right-click on the volume and select "Spanning".
Step 3 in the process is to select the drive(s) you want to include.
Step 4 you are presented with a screen informing you are about to convert your discs to "Dynamic". It's not optional. You either convert or cancel the process, so I selected to continue.
I then received a message the process failed. "Devices don't support this action" or something along those lines.
From that point on, my drives became inoperable. Device Manager could see them but Disc Manager could not. Nothing I tried would bring them back into Disc Manager. Even using the Cmd line approach, they were not identified.
I have 2 new drives coming later in the week but for obvious reasons am reluctant to try this again without better understanding this process and am looking for answers to the following questions:
1. Did the failure occur because both drives were external drives? i.e. does Spanning even work with external drives?
2. Has anyone else experienced this problem and did you find a solution?
3. Does Spanning work with any drive or is it a feature that has to be supported by that drive?
4. Is there another way to accomplish this? Basically, my needs are simple. I want to backup several drives to "more than one drive". In other words, when I start, identify my backup drive and the drives I want to back up. When that drive is full add a second backup drive, and a third, etc. without dropping the one(s) that are now full.
Ideas Experts??
My Backup software (iDrive) only looks at one drive at a time which my media won't fit on so I'm looking for a "Volume" solution where you can group multiple backup drives but have it "appear" to Windows 10 as only one drive.
That brought me to the subject of "Spanning" drives. A term I was completely unfamiliar with, but from it's description, sounded exactly like what I was looking for so I thought I'd give it a try.
Using Disk Manager:
Step 1 in the process is to delete the existing volume.
Step 2 in the process is to right-click on the volume and select "Spanning".
Step 3 in the process is to select the drive(s) you want to include.
Step 4 you are presented with a screen informing you are about to convert your discs to "Dynamic". It's not optional. You either convert or cancel the process, so I selected to continue.
I then received a message the process failed. "Devices don't support this action" or something along those lines.
From that point on, my drives became inoperable. Device Manager could see them but Disc Manager could not. Nothing I tried would bring them back into Disc Manager. Even using the Cmd line approach, they were not identified.
I have 2 new drives coming later in the week but for obvious reasons am reluctant to try this again without better understanding this process and am looking for answers to the following questions:
1. Did the failure occur because both drives were external drives? i.e. does Spanning even work with external drives?
2. Has anyone else experienced this problem and did you find a solution?
3. Does Spanning work with any drive or is it a feature that has to be supported by that drive?
4. Is there another way to accomplish this? Basically, my needs are simple. I want to backup several drives to "more than one drive". In other words, when I start, identify my backup drive and the drives I want to back up. When that drive is full add a second backup drive, and a third, etc. without dropping the one(s) that are now full.
Ideas Experts??
ASKER
Doesn't show them.
What about "Storage Spaces" in Windows 10. Will that work?
What about "Storage Spaces" in Windows 10. Will that work?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Right click cmd.exe and select "run as administrator" so an elevated command line will be started. There, please launch one after the other:
diskpart
list disk
select disk x
clean
select disk y
clean
(substitute x and y for the numbers of your empty drives that "list disk" shows)
diskpart
list disk
select disk x
clean
select disk y
clean
(substitute x and y for the numbers of your empty drives that "list disk" shows)
If seatools does get get those drives back for you, you might want to try partition wizard. The pro version lists dynamic disk management as one of its features, but if all you need to do is delete them and re-partition the free version might work. See: https://www.partitionwizard.com/comparison/free-partition-manager.html
ASKER
I'll check this out.
Is anyone aware of backup software I could purchase that would do all of this for me as part of the backup?
Is anyone aware of backup software I could purchase that would do all of this for me as part of the backup?
Seems to me it should be easy enough to backup some directories to one drive and the rest to another drive.
You can use a tool like robocopy or my favorite is freefilesync see: https://www.freefilesync.org/
Use a tool like treesize free to see your directories and their sizes, and select which directories to back up on each drive. see: https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/
FreeFileSync (FFS) is a folder sync program that compares any directories you select to a destination set then copies what changed. Everything will be in normal windows readable format (no compressed stuff). It runs on demand ... nothing is running in the background all the time monitoring your files (like most differential backup tools). After the first time only the new or changed files will be copied. Just set up one sync set for each back up drive. You can save the sets on each drive to execute when you plug in the drive.
One possible advantage... you can split the directories so the more stagnant data resides on one disk and more dynamic data resides on the other. Then plug in the more dynamic disk more frequently to keep it freshened.
You can use a tool like robocopy or my favorite is freefilesync see: https://www.freefilesync.org/
Use a tool like treesize free to see your directories and their sizes, and select which directories to back up on each drive. see: https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/
FreeFileSync (FFS) is a folder sync program that compares any directories you select to a destination set then copies what changed. Everything will be in normal windows readable format (no compressed stuff). It runs on demand ... nothing is running in the background all the time monitoring your files (like most differential backup tools). After the first time only the new or changed files will be copied. Just set up one sync set for each back up drive. You can save the sets on each drive to execute when you plug in the drive.
One possible advantage... you can split the directories so the more stagnant data resides on one disk and more dynamic data resides on the other. Then plug in the more dynamic disk more frequently to keep it freshened.
ASKER
Thanks for the responses everyone. My primary questions and concern regarding a satisfactory solution were addressed best by andyaider and I'll proceed with the Storage Spaces solution. Why the existing drives became inoperable was more academic than necessary and your information valuable should it ever happen again.
No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned.
I have recommended this question be closed as follows:
Accept: Handy Holder (https:#a42218155)
If you feel this question should be closed differently, post an objection and the moderators will review all objections and close it as they feel fit. If no one objects, this question will be closed automatically the way described above.
seth2740
Experts-Exchange Cleanup Volunteer
I have recommended this question be closed as follows:
Accept: Handy Holder (https:#a42218155)
If you feel this question should be closed differently, post an objection and the moderators will review all objections and close it as they feel fit. If no one objects, this question will be closed automatically the way described above.
seth2740
Experts-Exchange Cleanup Volunteer
Odd that you can no longer see them though, What does diskpart show when you type "list disk" ?