Windows Storage Spaces Jun 2026

| Type | Min drives | Capacity efficiency | Fault tolerance | Best for | |------|------------|---------------------|----------------|----------| | | 1 | 100% | None (striped) | Temporary data, scratch disks | | Two-way mirror | 2 | 50% | 1 drive failure | General purpose, OS, VMs | | Three-way mirror | 5 | 33% | 2 drive failures | High availability | | Parity (single) | 3 | ~66% | 1 drive failure | Archival, large files | | Dual parity | 7 | ~50-75% | 2 drive failures | Large capacity + protection |

One of the primary benefits of Storage Spaces is its ability to keep your data safe even if a physical drive fails. During setup, you choose a "resiliency type" for each space: Storage Spaces in Windows - Microsoft Support windows storage spaces

While Storage Spaces is powerful, it isn't perfect. | Type | Min drives | Capacity efficiency

: These are the virtual disks you carve out of the pool. They appear in File Explorer as regular drives with their own drive letters. Resiliency Options (RAID-like Protection) They appear in File Explorer as regular drives

For the home lab enthusiast or the small business looking to protect critical data without breaking the bank on enterprise hardware, It offers the resilience of RAID with the flexibility of modern software.

: This is the "mixing bowl" where you aggregate your raw ingredients—your physical HDDs, SSDs, or NVMe drives. You can mix and match different drive sizes and connection types, such as SATA, SAS, and USB.