My Windows Home Server (WHS) laptop comes equipped with a 100 GB hard drive. The installation creates two partitions: System and Data. The system partion is automatically configured at 20 GB and the remaining 80 GB is for data. If you decide you need more disk space, you can simply plug and play a USB drive of any size and it will format the drive and balance the data.

Figure A.

For example, if you add space and then copy a large file, the data will be spread over the entire set of data. It doesn’t just fill up one drive and then move to the next drive. On my laptop, (Figure A.) I now have 503 GB of space and can continue to add space as long as I have available USB slots or a USB powered hub. Figure B. and Figure C. give you a closer look at the disk storage configuration in WHS.

Figure B.
Figure C.

Let’s walk through adding extra storage; it is a snap!

  1. My first step is to simply plug in an external USB drive. WHS will recognize it as a Non Storage Hard drive as shown in Figure D.
  2. Right-click on the drive and choose Add. The Welcome to the Add a Hard Drive Wizard appears.
  3. Click Finish and your new drive is properly formatted for WHS.

Note: A status bar appears with your progress (Figure E) and the new drive is added (Figure F).

Figure E.
Figure F.

After you click Done, you will see your newly created drive and a status of Healthy. Any time you need to add more space to your WHS, simply follow this process. It can’t be any easier. 

Don’t forget to read the first post in the series, “Real World: Using Windows Home Server.”