How to remove a physical disk from the Storage pool on Windows 11?

Question

I have a tiered storage pool with the following disks on my Windows 11 Pro system.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-StoragePool -FriendlyName TieredPool | Get-PhysicalDisk

Number FriendlyName              SerialNumber                             MediaType CanPool OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage            Size
------ ------------              ------------                             --------- ------- ----------------- ------------ -----            ----
0      ST9500325AS               6VEY17AL                                 HDD       False   OK                Healthy      Retired     465.76 GB
1      SanDisk SDSSDA120G        153261402343                             SSD       False   OK                Healthy      Auto-Select 111.79 GB
2      KINGSTON SV300S37A120G    50026B775A0A858D                         SSD       False   OK                Healthy      Auto-Select 111.79 GB
4      SanDisk Extreme Pro 500GB E823_8FA6_BF53_0001_001B_444A_466B_0D9E. SSD       False   OK                Healthy      Auto-Select 465.76 GB

I want to remove disk number 0 from the pool.

I tried to remove the physical disk directly, but I got insufficient space error.

I tried to shrink the virtual disk first to make room in the storage pool, but I got "not supported" error.

Is it not possible to remove a physical disk from a storage pool on Windows 11 Pro?

Answer 1

Hello,

We could try to remove a physical disk from the Storage Pool under device management check if it works.

Press Win + X and choose Disk Management.

In the lower half of the Disk Management window, you can see a graphical representation of all your drives that includes storage space drives.

Right-click on the disk that you want to remove from the storage pool and select Remove Mirror.

A new window will open asking you to select the disk to remove. Select the disk and click Remove.

A warning will appear that the data will be lost. If you’re sure you want to remove the disk, click Yes.

The drive is now removed from the storage pool. You can see this in the lower half of the Disk Management window.

Now, you can format the disk and use it for other purposes. Right-click on the drive and select Format...

Choose your settings (usually the defaults are fine) and click OK.

Please make sure you have a backup of all your data before removing a disk from the storage pool as it will delete all the data on the disk.

Best Regards,

Hania Lian

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