Make a Home Storage Server, The Cheap and Easy Way!

[@TedWilder]

You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a simple tutorial on this. Everyone else is either a hobbyist or an IT pro looking to expand their homelab. More power to em but i just want a storage drive lol. Thanks SO much for making this simple and easy to understand for us noobs ❤

[@RutvikPhatak]

I agree 100%, I wanted to do something simmilar and to even get to this video I had to search a bunch of different keywords

[@MurphysTactical]

Did this for a friend who lost their business computer data from a failed HDD (external drive backups stopped about 6 months prior). I built them a new system with 2x2TB drives running parity through Windows rather than hardware raid as I have had bad luck recovering from hardware raid failure. Windows made this very easy and you do a great job showing this!

[@sadkosadko5747]

Would do you mean by parity ?

[@MurphysTactical]

@sadkosadko5747 basically raid 1. The drives are mirrored. In the event of a failure of one drive, no data is lost.

[@Ahmadix-Game]

Omg, this is the 50th video I have watched on YT, and finally I found what I’m looking for. Thank you man

[@viralarchitect]

HOW IS THIS THE FIRST TIME I'M HEARING ABOUT STORAGE POOLS IN WINDOWS???????? This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!

[@Bewefau]

because I think its called storage spaces and its only on windows 8 and maybe 10 plus servers.

[@MarcioHuser]

I've knew about them on server editions since the window 8 era (we had machines on the company running windows server on mirrored drives by software) . I had no idea it was also available on Windows 10/11 until a couple of months ago

[@RealLordy]

Because most of the YT guys talking about NAS systems are homelabbers and consider storage spaces as inferior and prefer anything based on Linux. Which honestly: it is NOT. It is easy to setup, and easy to recover if the computer breaks (pull out the disks, drop them in another PC and it works again so to speak) I even recovered a storage pool from a windows server system on a Win 10 machine after my old motherboard broke. To get super speed however, some things are only possible in a windows server operating system. One of the things to look for is the amount of colums you use in a mirror: doubling the amount of colums doubles the write speed. But also doubles the amount of disks required (does not affect available storage space: with a mirror you have only 50 percent of the total amount of storage)

[@garryconnors8804]

Bro, your tutorials are the best. Easy enough for an absolute beginner but not dumbed down so still great for an experienced person.

[@khashayarr]

You should do an rclone tutorial after this! It changed my backup life! I run a batch file with a hotkey after the workday is done and BAM synced to storage pool and Backblaze B2 in 2 minutes

[@tankeryy1566]

at 7:52 why is the size (maximum) only at 9.68 TB, what happens if you do 14.5 TB? and what does resiliency means in this situation?

[@starbuck1776]

I use a program called Drive Bender. It pools the drives, but you can duplicate data down to the folder level, meaning you can pick what data you want to have redundancy. I've got around 20 tb of mixed drives on an older pc that also is running Plex and Emby servers, and acts as my NAS.

[@chiyolate]

Having resiliency is great, but I still prefer to have a separate mirror backup on a single external drive like those Seagate Desktop Expansion or the WD My Book in case of natural disaster or emergency situation, you can grab the backup drive and bring it with you.

[@moneybilla]

Loekey a horrible idea, specially the wd one lmfao that's asking to grab ur ext. Drive only for it to not work since it's been sitting

[@earthling_parth]

This was an amazing beginner level tutorial that almost everyone can follow. I really appreciate you showing some troubleshooting steps for common errors. I'm a Linux systems administrator so even I learned something new about NAS and windows troubleshooting steps. Thanks CJ ♥️

[@galengrassi4704]

Bro your channel is awesome! Your presentations are always clearly communicated. Keep them going and Happy Holidays to you and yours.

[@TurtlesOnIce]

@ElevatedSystems - would it be possible to easily set this new drive pool up to he accessable when i am not home?

[@obhush]

Great video. I was considering building a NAS using TrueNAS scale but I was concerned about the need for specialized RAM and lack of flexibility of adding new storage within ZFS. Windows seems to be the right choice for me. But can you cover how to run this server headless?

[@cromikron2868]

You mentioned that those beginner videos don't get watched as much because your audience, in general, is more advanced than these videos. However they are still highly appreciated by people like me :) Thanks

[@vikasrai338]

Great but I wonder how to ensure (a) data security through ransomwares, viruses etc. on network (b)share it over internet and be available on other os like Linux, android.

[@christophersmart1898]

Great video! Finally, a simply way explained for a mass storage. Thanks for the video!

[@maytronix7201]

I know this is two years old...but can you just say.... "forgediboudit" Or "dat foogn guy" Would make my year

[@davelazenby77255]

Thank you, I was looking for a quick simple way to share a large pool of drives through out my home network, I dont want to build a full blown free nas server, this is just the quick simple thing i was looking for.

[@jakewynn]

Nice to see the CJ64 in the background :)

[@rager1969]

Heh heh, I've wanting to do this for years but wanted to do a lot of testing before "putting it into production" at home. After a bunch of putting it off and forgetting, I finally set up a test system, re-using some old drives to mess with. I hit both problems at 10:00 and figured the drive was bad. Good to see what I need to do since that's part of what I'm doing here - trying and learning. After I'm done fooling around adding/removing drives, I plan on using the actual brand-new disks on the test system and then do the ultimate test: move to another PC (the system I want to run it on). It's supposed to work. If it doesn't then I'll start over. But if it does work, then I have faith that I can recover from any failed component, including the computer. Then, I'll have a good affordable NAS that can grow leaving me with the next task, a good back up strategy.

[@HansRiveraCreations]

i know theres other services like TrueNAS but is there a way i can access this shared drive outside my home network?

[@Argent_99]

Huh. I’ve been drivepooling my server with stablebit drivepool for a a few years now and never knew this was a feature in windows. Not likely to switch over (rebuilding 50tb of data? No thanks!) but this is really fascinating information.

[@jsengxx]

Is there a way to add VPN to this so you will be able to access the files while outside of the network?

[@avinashrajan275]

Hi Bro, It was Nice video , thank you , i have question here what will happen in case OS crashed and Installed new OS will be data remains safe and storage configuration will be same as earlier or all data invisible.

[@ElevatedSystems]

You can reinstall windows or move your storage pool to another windows PC and it will be recognized as a storage pool and all the data will be intact.

[@T3hBeowulf]

TIL: Windows has native storage support. I thought all of these features perished with the discontinuation of Windows Home Server. Neat!

[@TarianJEDTech]

I am curious why you choose to do parity on SMR drives? There are some major potential for recovery time issues with SMR drives when using parity. -- Oops they are CMR Would have been nice to see you fully simulate the recovery part of the process (show recover time and such) so people could see what is typical during that type of situation.

[@ElevatedSystems]

Seagate only uses SMR in their Baracuda drives. All their Ironwolf NAS drives are CMR.

[@TarianJEDTech]

@@ElevatedSystems Oh, my bad!

[@rager1969]

At 12:53, that's good to know. I will make sure to create a folder to share rather than share the root.

[@TheTalabas]

huge unload of my work. was tired to move external drive from a device to another. with this shared storage thingy i can work directly on the same hdd from any device. wonder if that works as an operating system drive too :) having all softwares installed across the network from the same storage

[@thehatter0319]

Hihi! This is really useful! But I got a question. Let's say my PC has all the drive bays maxed out with all of the hdds having some stuff in there alr. Now if I want to remove one of the hdds to replace it with one that is higher in capacity what should I do? Esp if I have two way mirror on?

[@Bewefau]

Another question. Does this work with a none internet connection active ?

[@Ang197O]

Great tutorial! Also, Jack Sprat sat on a SATA. Serial Advanced Technology Attachment.

[@imtiazsyed8716]

Does anyone know how to access this type of storage from a different network - outside of home?

[@inzendis]

I would suggest something like Nextcloud with a Cloudflare tunnel and a secure login with an account (for example email and password or GitHub account) before the Nextcloud login. That way you can access your data through browser anywhere in the world without portforwarding anything. At most you would need to buy a domain and thats it, iirc.

[@wasbus]

could i use external drive using a usb port

[@Mister_Samuel_T_Owen]

Is there a reliable PCI-e Sata expansion card that you would recommend? Online reviews are these cards all seem to indicate a coin flip....

[@DJ-Dubs713]

Love your video. Very informative. I have 1 question. I have 8tb of storage and only wanted to make 5 accessible by password. How would I do that?

[@MarkWoodChannel]

I did this exact setup by chance, Win 11 Pro, 4 - 6 TB Western Digital drives, my write speeds are absolute trash. To the point where it stops to let the disks catch up seemingly. Researching the fixes now.

[@ambet2760]

how can i access using android phone to the pool

[@Bewefau]

What windows did you use ? And what windows will this NOT work on ?

[@TommyDrone]

This is an excellent video. Thanks so much. I'll be watching this again and agian.

[@catalinandro3913]

Presuming the motherboard or cpu fails, and the OS needs to be rebuilt or reinstalled, is there any way to recover the parity HDD configuration and restore your data on a new system?

[@ElevatedSystems]

You can move the storage pool to any Windows system and it will be recognized.

[@mr_edits_495]

Can I acses this from my phone or not (I have a iPhone)

[@andre0000000007]

thank you so much, awesome video and thx for simulating failures too. one thing you did not cover is how would you know which 4tb HD failed? in your example you pulled the sata, but in real world you would not know which one failed and they don't have disk names (unallocated when installed) so how would you know which HD to replace? thx

[@ElevatedSystems]

You can find it by the serial number.

[@andre0000000007]

@@ElevatedSystems thank you 👍

[@RocketStrke]

how would you port forward it

[@eiriktyvold3668]

what kinda of read/write speeds do you get with this system? great vid btw :D

[@OwtDaftUK]

You sound like Christopher Walken.

[@AlexUnknown37]

I have some questions. FIrst off, is Storage pool new? Its just weird that a bunch of people this year has talked about converting old PC into nas. alright real question time, I know there are cool nas software that I think you have even talked about where you can share a file from your nas with someone on the internet. Can someone do this on a windows nas? also any recommendations on software to use? I wanted the ltt video and grabbed "Winaero Tweaker" but don't really know what features are good to have. I use parsec to connect to the nas when I need to.

[@ElevatedSystems]

No its not new at all and Parsec is a good option to remotely access your system. You can map your network drive so anyone you want can access it from outside your local network. It is very easy to do in Windows however, many people will also have to also configure settings in their router. This will be different depending on your router so I didn't cover that.

[@Oxigono_publications]

Question: My motherboard fails, or my cpu fails and I change MB and CPU. How can I get the data from those drives? In a single drive I just plug it in my new system.

[@ElevatedSystems]

Just plug the drives into any windows system and it will recognize the pool.

[@DevonDassaw]

This video made me subscribe. Thanks for clarifying this whole thing. Now to find out how to implement what you’ve explained with my SSDs 👀

[@rajusaha2908]

I already have created a file server and It works amomg computers. But I also want to access the file server from my mobile. How would I do that??

[@tahmidfuad448]

Use es file manager. You can access remote storage with it.

[@MarcioHuser]

Wait! Why 3-way mirroring requires 5 drives? Was it a mistake? 🤔

[@ElevatedSystems]

To create a three-way mirror space in Windows Storage Spaces, you need at least five physical disks. This protects against 2 drive failures.

[@MarcioHuser]

@@ElevatedSystems Hmm, odd math. I think I will research why is that. thanks

[@MarcioHuser]

Found my answer... I wonder who would use 3-way mirror, as it lose too much space for "quorum", because the formula is 3n+2 drives, to have n drives available for storage. Using 5 disks to have space of 1, for the minimum setup, is crazy! 😅

[@MoeOverload1]

This worked for a second but now it just shows media files and won’t let me share anything can’t seem to figure it out

[@OShackHennessy]

I have 3 SSD’s set up with storage spaces in parity and it works fine but they’re attached using a USB dock. Does anyone know how to tell which one is which assuming one goes bad?

[@michaelflores8023]

Awesome! Simple! Keep it up!

[@cichi_nandi]

why not work for me ... i make step by step and dident see my " pool " sistem... 1 pc its see but cant acceses... and rest 2 pc and 2 laptops dident see .. why ?..

[@posmoo9790]

this is great even 2 years later.

[@afkafkafk]

I can't wait for the day to do this, I got a power mac g5 in storage that is dead (the PSU that is) but one day I will gut it and turn it into a Nas and server for small things

[@_-Skeptic-_]

What happens if the computer hosting those drives fails? Can we connect our drives to another computer and retrieve the data? Please if anyone knows the answer let me know.

[@ElevatedSystems]

Yes, any Windows system will recognize the storage pool.

[@_-Skeptic-_]

@@ElevatedSystems thanks for replying

[@earthling_parth]

In simple mode, if one drive fails do we really lose data on ALL the drives? I thought we would only lose data on one drive even when running RAID 0/simple mode on windows.

[@ElevatedSystems]

You can probably recover some data but as far as I know you won't be able to do it within the OS. You would need a third party tool. However, officially, according to the Microsoft documentation a drive failure results in total data loss

[@earthling_parth]

@@ElevatedSystems oh, okay. I didn't know that. Thanks for the reply CJ 👍

[@abdurrakib5643]

Very nice and easy way to do. Thank you.

[@bbhbhbh6631]

how to solve "storage space cannot be extended because the number of clusters will exceed the maximum number of clusters supported by the file system" proplem ?

[@OShackHennessy]

Appreciate this video man it was really helpful

[@VideoManFL]

Very well done. Best explanation I hsve seen. Thanks

[@sysdrum]

There needs to be other options to sponsor you other then Patreon. I do enjoy your content and would love to support you thru youtube channel membership if that was an option. You are one of the few that use the community builder on here. ~~~ I do not want talk bad about company; I once worked for but there are things they are not doing that make using them dangerous. ~~~

[@ElevatedSystems]

Unfortunately, KZbin hasn't graced me with the Join or Super Thanks options yet.

[@sysdrum]

@@ElevatedSystems Understood.

[@m.yonggipuriza4589]

Love your video bro. Thank you.

[@juliennbitt3376]

so helpful and thank you

[@Marom_Haim]

but you can't use it from somewhere outside of your house or LAN.........

[@ElevatedSystems]

Yes you can, you just need to set up port forwarding.

[@TheMiningKiiNG]

I did all this and gives me a permissions error? even though I give everyone full control? I hate windows never works correctly

[@Alex4n3r]

Don't buy drives from the same batch. In this way you mitigate simultaneous failing drives.

[@ElevatedSystems]

The average consumer won't be able to controll this other then buying drives from different vendors, but I can say I bought all my Seagate drives from Amazon at the same time and all of them have separate lot numbers.

[@TimJ201]

it doesn't work for me because it doesn't show up on another laptop

[@kataseiko]

Nice tutorial. But I have a feeling that this man never right-clicked the start button.

[@ElevatedSystems]

Thanks and you're right. I usually just use the Win+X shortcut. However, I teach the search bar as it can be used for all windows Programs and Settings.

[@johntalbert8227]

I never had, just did it. Thank you for showing me something new.

[@mdabrarbappy2378]

Everything is fine n all. I appreciate the video, but one thing is kinda funny when you say very cheap and even free and pull out those seagate Ironwolf😢

[@ray.upside-down]

Just why youtube why you don't have to send me a friggin notification that he uploaded just whyyyyyy, that's it Susan or whoever will pay for it

[@s.w.3604]

Why didn't he get the big PC case?

[@donatedflea]

perfect thx

[@DMP2923]

Can't simply read. Its DISK manager

[@Splader]

Bro looks like he's from Testout

[@bland9876]

Power shell always has worse commands than command prompt.

[@butterbagboy]

You lost me at…..storage spaces

[@etebong]

sooo i accidently formated my hard drive with a bunch of important things..............................

[@regretfulturtle2612]

😬

[@apps2rescu]

🥶

[@thomaschan3625]

Please turn your mic compression off or your sensitivity, it doesn’t sound normal and bothers meeeee

[@MarioH73-Lo1-prod]

no everyone is not welkom i juse a password and system i dont want in savty two!

[@ApiaryProductions]

I bet you anything you like this won’t work for me. It just won’t I’m sure of it 😂.

[@x3ICEx]

-space

[@iantaylor7992]

Excellent, thank you for this superb tutorial. Easy to follow and to the point with no rambling on irrelevant topics. I echo the comment below "You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a simple tutorial on this" by @TedWilder. Again thank you this was exactly what I was looking for🙂