Storage Space and Space Pooling in x32Win10ProV20H2

I used to edit material on an external HDD which I would back up monthly. When that drive failed, I realised that I should have been backing up the edits between month's ends. Then I saw that Storage Spaces in Settings;Storage, promised to 'save files to 2 or more drives' and that seemed to be what I needed. When I started the process of 'creating a new pool and storage space' I saw a warning that Windows would delete all files off the HDDs in the pool. I did not want to lose what was on the original ext HDD which I was editing, so the Storage Spaces mechanism no longer seemed suitable - unless I misunderstood the warning. Can someone clarify for me ?
The external HDD failure consisted of it no longer showing up in THIS PC and Disk Management in two different PCs.

I am willing to try Storage Spaces and abandon it if not 'as desired'. My concern in making the post is specifically : does Windows REALLY wipe everything on both pooled HDDs before it does any double saving ?

Your screen shot shows two unformatted drives - well they can not have any data that Windows could wipe - then there is a third formatted drive with a warning above it that Windows will wipe it. That is the warning which concerns me.

My scenario is that I have an external drive with data - I edit some of that data and save the changes to that external drive. Because of my bad experience I want to 'automatically' save those changes to another drive, which would start off empty, but as the month progresses, would accumulate ever more saved edits. Can I expect POOLED SPACES to do that automatic double-saving for me [to the original external, as well as to an initially-blank auxiliary HDD] WITHOUT loss of data from either HDD ?

"Your question about double storage / redundancy appears to relate to the normal operation of storage spaces once configured, so seems obscure." If my question is obscure, your comment about it leaves me uncomprehending. Are you saying that Storage Spaces does exactly what I need ? In which case, how to interpret Window's warning about wiping data ?

"Don't include drives with data" - so it is NOT suitable for the purpose that I have TWICE described in detail.....

I will try to explain my situation again and beg you to tell me if Storage Spaces is applicable to my need ASSUMING that Storage Spaces works as intended.

I OBVIOUSLY have a system drive - call it C; I have an external drive (call it D) that I take data from to edit in C. Once the editing is done, I want to transfer it back to D; but I also want to do a backup to another drive (call it E) which starts off empty, but accumulates edits throughout the month. Then at month's end, I clone D - and no longer need the backups on E. Can I use Storage spaces to automatically save to E as well as D, without losing the original data on D - or the accumulating edits on E ?

I'm sorry you so desperately need a screenshot - but I have no idea what to show you in it.

Sebastian42 said:

Once the editing is done, I want to transfer it back to D; but I also want to do a backup to another drive (call it E) which starts off empty, but accumulates edits throughout the month. Then at month's end, I clone D - and no longer need the backups on E. Can I use Storage spaces to automatically save to E as well as D, without losing the original data on D - or the accumulating edits on E ?

I am fairly sure the answer is 'yes'. But once you set up SS, you don't get to control what gets stored on E, because SS is in charge. You just keep using D as before, and let SS worry about E.

That said, what I think is causing the confusion is the question of what happens when you set up SS: it is unambiguous that it will clear any existing data on the pooled drives. So you must be happy to initially lose everything on D & E. The way to get over this would be copy back the data from a third disc (your clone) after setting up SS. But I would say not by cloning #3 to D (or E) as that would almost certainly confuse SS - it would have to be a normal file->file copy.

Does that help? Martin

PS I would probably deal with your situation by imaging from D to E daily, although that would need incremental images to avoid wasting space. Or perhaps I would just do a double copy from C to both D & E. In all 3 cases you are vulnerable to the loss of nearly a month's work if the PC blows up badly enough.

PPS If you set up SS, and call the pooled discs 'D', you won't actually see an 'E'.