Windows 8 Feature: Storage Spaces

So the news isn’t all bad with Windows 8. Peeking under the hood I came across a feature that may come as a delight to the disk space challenged among us. Storage Spaces is a feature in Windows 8 that allows multiple disks to be pooled and configured as one large storage space. The configuration also allows for setting the type of “resiliency” (data protection) you would like within the disks in the pool. You can select resiliency levels of none, two-way mirror, three-way mirror, or parity.  Basically, plug in two or three of those one terabyte USB drives you have laying around and launch Storage Spaces from the Control Panel. The wizard guides you through configuration of the storage space size, what type of resiliency to provide, and assigns a drive letter. After that you have a large volume that serves as storage and protection for your data. If one drive fails in the storage space it can easily be replaced with a new drive without any data loss (provided you selected a type of resiliency). One caveat is that you cannot use your system drive (usually your C: drive) as part of the drive pool. Storage Spaces is a great solution for those of us who have collected USB hard drives over the years and often wonder how we can continue to get use out of them or for those who still aren’t quite ready to spring the dollars for a Drobo system. If you would like to read more about Storage Spaces Paul Thurrott over at the Supersite for Windows has a complete review.