Storage Spaces USB Drive array - moving from Win11 to Win10

[SpeedGeek]

I have a Mediasonic 4-bay USB Drive enclosure that holds 4 x 4TB Seagate Drives. I have configured them to create a Storage Spaces pool with my Windows 11 computer. This pool is 14.5TB in size (and I am using 8.48TB of it currently).

When the Drives enclosure is connected to the computer with a short USB 3.1 cable it works fine. I can optimize it, I can read / write files to it - it's perfect.

However - if I connect it with a LONG USB cable (and I have tried 3 different cables between the length of 8 - 12 feet), the Storage Spaces does not show up, instead there is a "Unknown USB Device (Port Reset Failed) in Device Manager.

This USED to work. For about a year my enclosure was in a different cabinet connect with a long 12 foot cable and was working perfectly, but now it only works when I use my short cable. This is driving me crazy.

I also tried connecting this enclosure to another Windows 10 computer and though the computer showed all the drives in "Disk Management" - with the correct size and even recognizing that they are part of a Storage Spaces array - it did NOT mount the drive to "This PC" so it was inaccessible.

How do I use this Storage Pool on another computer? and why is it not working with a longer cable?

 

[DelenaСhelsiecain]

Have you considered that the longer cable might not be delivering enough power for your enclosure? It's a common issue with longer USB cables. You might try a cable with a built-in repeater, or an active USB extension.

As for moving the Storage Spaces pool to a different computer, in theory, it should work as long as the new computer is running Windows 10 or later. Try this: open Storage Spaces on the new computer, select "Change settings", then "Add drives", and see if the drives from your enclosure show up there. If they do, you should be able to add them to the pool.

Remember to back up your data before making any major changes.

 

[SpeedGeek]

Have you considered that the longer cable might not be delivering enough power for your enclosure? It's a common issue with longer USB cables. You might try a cable with a built-in repeater, or an active USB extension.

As for moving the Storage Spaces pool to a different computer, in theory, it should work as long as the new computer is running Windows 10 or later. Try this: open Storage Spaces on the new computer, select "Change settings", then "Add drives", and see if the drives from your enclosure show up there. If they do, you should be able to add them to the pool.

Remember to back up your data before making any major changes.

I appreciate the quick reply! Yes I did think about the USB long cable / power issue but like I mentioned this particular cable (and others like it) have worked with this enclosure in the past, for a very long time. I think they only stopped working after an update Windows 11 had.
The new computer I'm moving the drives to is running Windows 10 but it is fully updated and when I try to "Add drives" it just says there are no compatible drives available, even though in DISK MANAGEMENT I can see the 4 drives and they are recognized as being part of a pool. It's very strange. It sees the drive it just won't mount it.