Now There’s a Problem with Storage Spaces

The rollout of Windows 10 version 2004 was expected to go smoothly, but that hasn’t happened. Now there’s a new problem.

“Devices using Storage Spaces might have issues using or accessing their Storage Spaces after updating to Windows 10 version 2004 ([with] the May 2020 Update) and Windows Server version 2004,” a new Microsoft support document notes. “When using some configurations, partition for Storage Spaces might show as RAW in Disk Manager.”

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In addition to recommending that users do not run the chkdsk command on any device affected by this issue, Microsoft has provided the following workaround:

“There is currently no workaround for this issue.”

Sigh.

Instead, Microsoft says that you can “prevent issues with the data on your Storage Spaces” by using the following instructions to mark them as read-only, presumably temporarily:

  1. Select Start and type: powershell
  2. Right-click or long-press on Windows PowerShell and select Run as administrator.
  3. If prompted by a User Access Control dialog for Windows Powershell, select yes.
  4. Within the PowerShell dialog, type the following command and press enter: get-virtualdisk | ? WriteCacheSize -gt 0 | get-disk | set-disk -IsReadOnly $true
  5. Your Storage Spaces should now be set to read-only, meaning you will not be able to write to them. Your device will still be usable, and any volume not seen as RAW should be readable.

Microsoft says it is “currently investigating this issue and will provide an update when more information is available.”

Great.

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Conversation 40 comments

  • Sir_Timbit

    17 June, 2020 - 11:53 am

    <p>At what point will they admit that their current update testing model is not working?</p>

    • Thomas Parkison

      17 June, 2020 - 12:34 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#547014">In reply to Sir_Timbit:</a></em></blockquote><p>I hope soon because even though I've not had any issues myself, I know that people complain all the time. This whole "let's write some code and throw it out there" isn't working.</p><p><br></p><p>I wonder what the morning meetings look like in the halls of Microsoft.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      18 June, 2020 - 11:05 am

      They will never do that.

    • naddy69

      18 June, 2020 - 11:24 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#547014">In reply to Sir_Timbit:</a></em></blockquote><p>Actually, it is working fine. Consumers ARE the testers. This was publicly stated by MS. </p><p><br></p><p>In a few months, when Enterprise customers get this, all the issues will be fixed. Because Enterprise customers are all that MS cares about. </p><p><br></p><p>Why anyone feels the need to install this on Day One, is still a mystery to me. We now have the ability to delay "feature updates" for a year, and for good reason. </p><p><br></p><p>Use it, ferchrissake. What IS the rush to install? </p>

  • martinusv2

    Premium Member
    17 June, 2020 - 12:13 pm

    <p>Lol, love the image. Microsoft needed another year of testing :)</p><p><br></p>

  • txag

    17 June, 2020 - 12:29 pm

    <p>Gee, maybe it’s time to rethink the process of updating twice a year. </p>

  • Thomas Parkison

    17 June, 2020 - 12:32 pm

    <p>Paul, are you saying that the 2004 rollout has been a train wreck?</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      18 June, 2020 - 11:04 am

      Yes. Yes I am.

      • Thomas Parkison

        18 June, 2020 - 12:23 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#547338">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>OK, just asking. LOL</p>

        • Paul Thurrott

          Premium Member
          19 June, 2020 - 8:42 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#547350">In reply to trparky:</a></em></blockquote><p>Yes. I didn't mean any offense. :)</p>

  • navarac

    17 June, 2020 - 12:37 pm

    <p>Just something else not seen by this Fast Ring Insider! Just saying.</p>

  • energy

    Premium Member
    17 June, 2020 - 12:47 pm

    <p>As far as I know, none of the PCs in our house have had a problem with Windows 10 v2004. Again, as far as I know. But, it sure seems that v2004 has been a disaster in many ways. </p><p><br></p><p>I think one major update per year along with a minor update might be doable, but perhaps even that many updates is too much.</p><p><br></p><p>Granted, maybe the should bring back have a testing team that can really pound on the versions besides the testing that is done by "Insiders". Of course, then there is the question of how well or successfully the Feedback from Insiders is being used.</p><p><br></p>

  • Winner

    17 June, 2020 - 12:52 pm

    <p>Good to see the crack Windows 10 QC team is still in top form.</p>

  • rob_segal

    Premium Member
    17 June, 2020 - 1:09 pm

    <p>There's been various reports about problems with storage spaces a few people entered into the Feedback Hub around 6 months ago. The problems surrounding the Insider Program goes beyond what each ring is named. The Feedback Hub and the data gathered from it isn't effective enough to surface bugs, a possible lack of engagement from the Insider community years after Windows 10 was released, and the sheer size and age of Windows itself are big challenges. </p>

  • bigfire

    Premium Member
    17 June, 2020 - 1:23 pm

    <p>There's an assumption that "more time = better". That's true for a lot of the release, but not all of it. MS can't hit every configuration case out there, and there's always going to be some bugs that survive. I doubt that slowing down the cadence would significantly improve the quality of the release.</p><p><br></p><p>This isn't to excuse MS's testing ability. The number of bugs I've seen in Teams alone is staggering.</p>

  • jgraebner

    Premium Member
    17 June, 2020 - 2:02 pm

    <p>Microsoft clearly has some serious gaps in their testing process. I suspect that Storage Spaces is a very specialized and not too widely used feature, so it probably isn't a big surprise that it wouldn't be too well represented in a self-selected group of testers. It's would most widely be used on media servers or other data archiving solutions that can benefit from using a lot of commodity storage, which are also the kinds of systems that are among the least likely to be trusted with a pre-release operating system. In other words, this is exactly the type of bug that is much more likely to be caught via targeted internal testing (using an actual test plan) or by external testers that are specifically recruited to cover a broad range of use scenarios.</p><p><br></p><p>The printer bug likely also was an under-represented category, but likely in a different way. Since the vast majority of printers sold in the last 10-15 years have networking capability, I suspect that a large majority of the type of power users that sign up for the Insider program have their printers networked. The much more casual user that is more likely to just connect their printer to their one computer via USB are also unlikely to even know that there is an Insider program. Once again, this is the type of bug that is much more likely to be caught by testers that are specifically targeting that feature.</p><p><br></p><p>I'm a QA professional myself and completely recognize the value of a program like the Insiders program, but it really appears that Microsoft is relying on it way too much.</p>

    • beckoningeagle

      Premium Member
      17 June, 2020 - 2:21 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#547075">In reply to jgraebner:</a></em></blockquote><p>Microsoft got rid of their testing department. They laid off everyone a few years ago. I think this was a big mistake as well. The testers had a methodology that can't be replicated by insiders. The insiders will report problems when things break, the testers, on the other hand, will purposely try to break things.</p>

  • dftf

    17 June, 2020 - 3:08 pm

    <p>Maybe Dynamics Disks shouldn't be retired quite so soon…?</p>

  • olditpro2000

    Premium Member
    17 June, 2020 - 3:08 pm

    <p>They should rehire their own software testers. Stop relying on the Insiders program.</p>

    • T182

      18 June, 2020 - 2:22 am

      <blockquote><a href="#547142"><em>In reply to OldITPro2000:</em></a></blockquote><blockquote><em>it’ll be a cold cold day in hell before that happens. </em></blockquote>

  • dftf

    17 June, 2020 - 3:12 pm

    <p>Also, weird one, and not sure is specific to 2004 but: if you install the new Edge, the old one gets hidden: no Start Menu shortcuts to it, and if you go into Settings and try to pick a default-browser, the old Edge doesn't appear in the list.</p><p><br></p><p>EXCEPT if you install a new browser, that is, and the first time you double-click a .URL file, Windows asks which app to use and includes the old Edge as an option. And if you choose it, it just opens the window briefly, then instantly closes it.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      18 June, 2020 - 10:53 am

      Yes, this is the behavior Microsoft announced back in January.

  • mattbg

    Premium Member
    17 June, 2020 - 4:10 pm

    <p>Thankfully the people using Windows 10 caught this before the bug made its way into Windows Server :)</p><p><br></p><p>I think that's how we may have to look at Windows 10 at this point.</p>

  • red77star

    17 June, 2020 - 4:15 pm

    <p>Storage Spaces -&gt; total crap. I rely on third party solution like Paragon Partition Manager to do things. I highly recommend disabling this service among many broken and useless things in Windows 10.</p>

    • bluvg

      17 June, 2020 - 7:22 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#547171">In reply to red77star:</a></em></blockquote><p>Storage Spaces and Partition Manager do quite different things.</p>

      • red77star

        18 June, 2020 - 11:46 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#547223">In reply to bluvg:</a></em></blockquote><p>For Disk Management purpose I use Paragon Partition Manager and as far as Storage Spaces, yes it has different purpose and it is useless to me. I disabled that service from day one.</p>

  • truerock2

    17 June, 2020 - 5:49 pm

    <p>About 10 years ago I was managing a portfolio of database technology for a large multi-national corporation. All of the corporation's databases (SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, etc) ran on various types of servers (Microsoft Windows Server, IBM AIX, HP UX, Sun Solaris, etc) and they all used some type of RAID for storage… some shared and some dedicated. </p><p><br></p><p>A DBA working in the central US region (she had decades of experience) approached me to fund her servers that did not follow corporate guidelines. One of her standards was to never use RAID. She only used JBOD (just plain old discs).</p><p>She showed me her research and the research of other technologists and I decided to fund her – even though her division manager hated me for it and never forgave me.</p><p><br></p><p>Her databases were at the very top level, world wide for highest uptime hours per year and the lowest off-line hours per year.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • bluvg

    17 June, 2020 - 6:27 pm

    <p>This is a big deal for their server-side storage tech, which is pretty impressive stuff (S2D, SOFS, etc.). </p><p><br></p><p>Satya… what will it take to consider this approach a failed experiment, and bring back the Test group? A former MSFT-ian explains in with great clarity exactly why this needs to happen in some fashion: https ://youtu.be/S9kn8_oztsA</p>

  • Stooks

    17 June, 2020 - 8:18 pm

    <p>What % of Windows 10 users actually use storage spaces?</p><p><br></p><p>On the server side software RAID has always been a bad choice usually driven by lack of funds. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • red77star

      18 June, 2020 - 11:46 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#547228">In reply to Stooks:</a></em></blockquote><p>Very little is my wild guess. Microsoft should remove it and update Disk Management with features like you will find in Paragon Partition Manager. </p><p><br></p><p>On side note, instead of wasting time with useless WSL they should have full support for Linux file system in Windows, meaning when I connect external drive formatted using one of the Linux file system Windows would be able to read and write to it.</p>

      • jgraebner

        Premium Member
        18 June, 2020 - 12:54 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#547346">In reply to red77star:</a></em></blockquote><p>So your advice is that they remove the feature and replace it with features that are totally unrelated? Do you even know what Storage Spaces does?</p>

  • SRLRacing

    17 June, 2020 - 8:20 pm

    <p>I took my main home machine off of the Insider Program due to some long standing issues with creating Storage Spaces that never seemed to be addressed. I got hit with a milder version of this where files in certain folders were corrupted. Luckily I had it setup as an REFS parity array and it seems to be repairing itself after some Power Shell configuration and task scheduling shenanigans that really should just be presented in the GUI instead of having that over-simplified child's toy of a menu and then requiring you to use Powershell to setup things like tiered storage and data integrity. </p>

  • Patrick3D

    18 June, 2020 - 12:01 am

    <p>Glad I've got my file server shutdown for the Summer. They didn't say if rolling back to 1910 resolves the issue of partitions being marked as RAW though?</p>

  • eric_rasmussen

    Premium Member
    18 June, 2020 - 11:54 am

    <p>When things like this break, you have to assume that they were working on some of the code related to it. However, are there any features or changes to storage spaces in 2004? I hadn't seen any announced, so it's possible that this is an indication of how badly coupled things are in the Windows code base. Changing code in one area causes unintended side-effects in an entirely unrelated area of the product.</p><p><br></p><p>It's bizarre to me that they haven't ever moved forward with something like Singularity. Using .NET or Rust for the core of the OS would make a lot of sense. Perhaps they are waiting for Google to finish Fushcia so that they can grab the code and base Windows off of that. It would complete the ecosystem: Edge is Chrome and Windows is Fushcia. ?</p>

  • kylejwx

    18 June, 2020 - 3:45 pm

    <p>I've been using the same Storage Space since Windows 8. It's upgraded with me to 8.1 and various versions of 10. Overall, I'm really happy with it. I hope they fix this issue and keep supporting it going forward.</p>

  • edzucker

    Premium Member
    18 June, 2020 - 8:05 pm

    <p>WOW! I read about this when Code Project included a link to a story. Then I heard you talk about it on Windows Weekly. I'm glad I was able to roll back my server PC, which is using storage spaces, to 1909. I am really disappointed that MS made 2004 available to a machine using storage spaces. Perhaps its time for a Synology NAS.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      19 June, 2020 - 8:35 am

      We discussed this on Windows Weekly two days ago.

  • naddy69

    18 June, 2020 - 11:15 pm

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The rollout of Windows 10 version 2004 was expected to go smoothly"</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">It was? By who? The last few feature updates have been full of problems. </span></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      19 June, 2020 - 8:29 am

      By me. And by anyone else who closely watches Microsoft. This one was tested for 3x as long as previously feature packs.

  • chrisrut

    Premium Member
    24 June, 2020 - 7:35 pm

    <p>I think they should provide more information before more information is available. </p>

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