Managing Hard Drives in Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

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Applies To: Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials

Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials makes it possible to perform common administrative tasks by using the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Dashboard. The Hard Drives page of the Dashboard provides the following:

  • A list of storage drives, which displays:

    • The name of drive

    • The capacity of the drive

    • The amount of space used on the drive

    • The amount of free space on the drive

    • The current status of the drive

  • A tasks pane that includes a set of administrative tasks, such as viewing the properties for a hard drive, and adding or removing a hard drive from the server storage.

The following table describes the various hard drive tasks that are available in the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials Dashboard. Some of the tasks are hard drive-specific, and they are only visible when you select a hard drive in the list.

Hard Drives tasks in the Dashboard

Task name Description

View the hard drive properties

Opens the properties page for a selected hard drive. On the General tab, you can change the name of the drive. If you are viewing the properties for the system partition (C:\ drive), you can also run the Drive cleanup utility. On the Check and Repair tab, you can run the Check and Repair Server Storage Wizard.

Remove the hard drive from Server Storage

Enables you to remove a selected hard drive from the server storage.

Add the hard drive to Server Backup

Helps you to include a selected hard drive in the Server Backup schedule.

Add the hard drive to Server Storage

Helps you assign an existing hard drive to Server Storage.

Cancel removing the hard drive

Stops the operation to remove a hard drive from the Server Storage.

Add a new hard drive to Server Backup

Helps you set up a new hard drive as a backup drive.

Repair Server Storage

Runs the Check and Repair Server Storage Wizard. This wizard checks the health of your storage drives, informs you of any problems that are detected, and allows you to repair problems that are found.

Set Non-default Server Storage as the default Server Storage

Helps you set a non-default Server Storage drive as the default Server Storage drive.

Create a Server Storage

Helps you create and configure a new location to manage storage drives if no default Server Storage drive exists.