Essentially, Storage Spaces stores two copies of your data so if one of your drives fails, you still have an intact copy of your data. When you add drives to a storage pool, the hardware name is used by default for the drive. You may want to rename the drive to any name you want. In this post, we will show you how to rename a Physical Drive in Storage Pool for Storage Spaces in Windows 11/10.
Rename a Physical Drive in Storage Pool for Storage Spaces in Windows 11/10
We can rename a Physical Drive in Storage Pool for Storage Spaces in Windows 11/10 in 2 quick and easy ways. We’ll explore this topic under the methods outlined below in this section:
- Via the Control Panel
- Through Windows PowerShell
Let’s start.
In Windows 11/10, there is no option to rename a physical drive added to the Storage Pool. Therefore, you can rename a physical drive in Storage Pool in Windows 11/10 via the Control Panel or Windows PowerShell.
1] Rename a physical drive in the Storage Pool via the Control Panel
- Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
- In the Run dialog box, type control and hit Enter to open the Control Panel.
- From the top right corner of the window, set the View by option to Large icons or Small icons.
- Click Storage Spaces.
- Click the Change settings button, and click on Yes if prompted by UAC.
- Click on the Rename link for the physical drive you want to change the name of in the storage pool you want.
- Now, type a new name you want for the physical drive.
- Click on Rename drive button.
- Exit Control Panel when done.
2] Rename a Physical Drive in the Storage Pool for Storage Spaces via PowerShell
To rename a Physical Drive in the Storage Pool for Storage Spaces via PowerShell in Windows 11/10, do the following:
Press Windows key + X to open the Power User Menu. Tap A on the keyboard to launch PowerShell in admin/elevated mode. The PowerShell window will appear. Now, type the following command and hit Enter:
Get-PhysicalDisk
The above command will list all the physical disks on your system. Carefully view the name of the physical disk attached to your Storage Pool to rename it. The current name of the physical disk is its friendly name.
Make note of the current friendly name of the physical drive (Physical drives in storage pools will be the ones listed as unspecified “media type”) you want to rename.
Now, type the command below into the elevated PowerShell window and hit Enter. Substitute the <CurrentName> and <NewName> placeholder with the actual current friendly name and with the actual new name you want for this physical drive, respectively.
Set-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName "<CurrentName>" -NewFriendlyName "<NewName>"
For example, in my case, if I want to rename the Msft Virtual Disk to VHD 1, the command will be:
Set-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName "Msft Virtual Disk" -NewFriendlyName "VHD 1"
Exit PowerShell when done.
That’s it. I hope this helps.
Read: How to Rename Storage Pool for Storage Spaces
How do I rename a physical disk?
You can rename a physical disk by opening its properties. Connect a [physical disk to your computer and open File Explorer. Now, right-click on the physical disk and select Properties. Under the General tab, change the name of your physical disk.
Does creating a storage pool delete files?
Yes, creating a Storage Pool deletes all the data available on the selected storage device. Therefore, it is mandatory to back up all your data before selecting your storage device to be added to a Storage Pool.
Now read: How to Add Drives to Storage Pool for Storage Spaces in Windows.
