Hi, in setting up and testing Storage Spaces on a brand new WSE 2012 R2 installation (all patches applied), I created a basic 2-disk Storage Pool with a fixed-provision Mirror Space (maximum size) with a standard NTFS volume. I added some data to the volume.
To simulate a drive failure, I then shut down the server and pulled one of the pool disks. I took the removed disk to another system and reformatted it (deleting whatever Storage Pool data it had contained), then attempted to add it back to the system as a new disk. This fails.
I followed the steps exactly as outlined in the Microsoft Storage Spaced FAQ. The Storage Pool shows as Degraded, and the (old) disk shows as Retired.
However, I am unable to add the disk to the pool either through the client GUI or via Server Manager. In Server Manager, the Add Physical Disk command is grayed out and unavailable, while in the client GUI I can select the disk, but the "Add Drives" process fails with the following error: The system can't find the file specified (0x00000002).
The new (old) disk shows up in Disk Manager as a Basic disk with GPT partition style, and I made sure it is Unallocated before hand. Here is the output from Get-PhysicalDisk (where disk 1 is the "missing" disk):
FriendlyName CanPool OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage
Size
------------ ------- ----------------- ------------ -----
----
PhysicalDisk3 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 3.64 TB
PhysicalDisk4 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 3.64 TB
PhysicalDisk8 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 1.82 TB
PhysicalDisk9 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 1.82 TB
PhysicalDisk0 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 3.64 TB
PhysicalDisk-1 False Lost Communication Warning Retired
3.64 TB
PhysicalDisk2 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 3.64 TB
PhysicalDisk6 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 119.24 GB
PhysicalDisk5 False OK Healthy
Auto-Select 3.64 TB
It appears to me that the new (old) disk is colliding with itself: as in the system won't let me add it to the pool because it already exists in the pool. However, I can't find a way to "force" the system to remove the retired disk altogether, so that I can add it back again as a "new" disk.
This experience suggests to me that Storage Spaces still seems fragile. I realize this is an artificial scenario, but is there a way to recover from this other than deleting the pool and recreating from backup?