On Windows 11 , Storage Spaces is a feature that allows you to group physical drives into one logical storage you can expand, adding more drives and protecting the data with different protection levels.

Storage Spaces supports several RAID-like features, including “simple” to increase storage performance, but does not protect files against hardware failure (requires two drives minimum). On the other hand, the “two-way mirror” requires two drives and offers protection against failures since the data is copied in multiple drives, and there is a “three-way mirror,” but it requires five drives.

The storage feature also offers the “parity” resiliency option, which requires at least three drives, and it provides storage efficiency and protection against failures by copying data in multiple places. If you want to protect data against two drive failures, the “dual parity” option requires at least seven drives.

In this guide , you will learn how to create a pool and storage space using the Control Panel and the modern Storage Spaces experience in the Settings app of Windows 11. (The Control Panel instructions will also apply to older versions, such as Windows 8 and 7.)

  • Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Settings
  • Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Control Panel

Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Settings

To create a pool with Storage Spaces on Windows 11, use these steps:

  1. Open Settings on Windows 11.
  2. Click on System .
  3. Click the Storage page on the right side.
  4. Under the “Storage management” section, click the Storage Spaces option.
  5. Click the Add button in the “Add a new Storage Pool” setting.
  6. Confirm a descriptive name for the storage pool.
  7. Select the drives to create a storage pool on Windows 11. Quick tip: The required number of drives will depend on the resiliency level you want to use.
  8. Click the Create button.
  9. Under the “Name” section, confirm a name for the storage space.
  10. Under the “Size & resiliency” section, specify the space size. Quick tip: If you want to dedicate all the available capacity to the storage space, you can leave the default size. You can also make the storage larger, and when the space starts to run low, you can add more drives to extend the storage.
  11. Use the drop-down menu and select the resiliency option , including: Simple – requires at least two drives, and no data protection will be available. Two-way mirror – requires at least two drives, and there is data protection in case of one drive failure. Three-way mirror – requires at least five drives and offers data protection against up to two drive failures. Parity – requires three drives and offers data protection and performance. Dual Parity – requires at least seven drives, offering data protection with up to two drive failures and performance.
  12. Click the Create button.
  13. Specify a label for the drive on the “New volume” page.
  14. Specify a letter for the drive.
  15. Select the NTFS option for the file system. Quick tip: You can also access the Advanced settings to mount the drive as a folder, specify the allocation unit size, and enable compression.
  16. Click the Format button.

Once you complete the steps, the new drive will appear in File Explorer to store data. If a drive fails, the storage and data will be available, but you will need to replace the hard drive in question, as a second drive failure will cause data loss.

Create Storage Spaces pool and space from Control Panel

To create your first drive pool and space with Control Panel, use these steps:

  1. Open Control Panel .
  2. Click on System and Security .
  3. Click the Storage Spaces option.
  4. Click the Create a new pool and storage space option from the left navigation pane.
  5. Select the drives that will be participating in the pool.
  6. Click the Create pool button.
  7. Under the “Name and drive letter” section, confirm a name for the storage space.
  8. Specify a letter for drive.
  9. Select the NTFS option for the file system.
  10. Under the “Resiliency” section, use the drop-down menu, and select the resiliency option, including Simple, Two-way mirror, Three-way mirror, Parity, or Dual Parity.
  11. Under the “Size” section, specify the size of the space.
  12. Click the Create storage space button.

After you complete the steps, the pool and space will be configured, creating a new drive available in File Explorer with the specified letter and label.

  • To remove printer and driver on Windows 10, open Settings > Printers & scanners, select the printer, and click “Remove device.” Then open Print management > Custom Filters > All Drivers , right-click the driver, and select “Delete.”
  • You can also remove a printer driver from PowerShell by running the “Get-PrinterDriver | Format-List Name” and “Remove-PrinterDriver -Name “Your-Printer-Name”” commands.

If you’re a mobile user working with a laptop, there’s a good chance you connect to many printers in different locations, which you may only use once or twice. As a result, after a while, you can end up with many printers installed on your computer without realizing it.

Of course, you can delete the devices you don’t need using the Settings app. However, you may not know that deleting a printer doesn’t delete its driver from Windows 10 . They will stay stored in a local inventory if you need them again. Although it’s a good approach for reinstalling printers quickly, if you won’t need the driver anymore, you can keep things organized, free up some space , and prevent (possible) printer driver problems by deleting the driver completely from Windows 10 or older versions.

This guide will teach you the steps to completely delete printer drivers on Windows 10.

Delete printer completely from Windows 10

On Windows 10, removing a printer and driver from your computer is a two-step process. First, you must remove the printer from the system, and second, you must delete the driver files using the Printer Management app or PowerShell.

Remove printer from Settings

To remove a printer from Windows 10, use these steps:

  1. Open Settings on Windows 10.
  2. Click on Devices .
  3. Click on Printers & scanners .
  4. Under the “Printers & scanners” section, select the printer to remove.
  5. Click the Remove device button.
  6. Click the Yes button.

Once you complete the steps, you can delete the driver from your computer from Print Management or PowerShell with the steps below. Alternatively, you can uninstall the printer from Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers , right-clicking the printer and selecting the “Remove device” option.

Delete printer driver from Print Management

To delete a printer driver, use these steps:

  1. Open Start .
  2. Search for Control Panel and click the top result to open the console.
  3. Click on System and Security .
  4. Click on Administrative Tools .
  5. Double-click the Print Management option.
  6. Expand the Custom Filters branch.
  7. Click on All Drivers from the left navigation pane.
  8. Right-click the printer driver on the right side, and select the Delete option.
  9. Click the Yes button.

After you complete the steps, the driver will uninstall from the computer. If you have additional printers, you’ll need to repeat the steps to remove them from the device altogether.

Delete printer driver from PowerShell

On Windows 10 Home, the Print Management app is unavailable, but you can still use PowerShell to uninstall the driver quite easily. You can also use these instructions on Windows 10 Pro.

To remove a print driver with PowerShell, use these steps:

  1. Open Start .
  2. Search for PowerShell , right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
  3. Type the following command to list all the print drivers installed on Windows 10 and press Enter : Get-PrinterDriver | Format-List Name
  4. Type the following command to remove the print driver and press Enter : Remove-PrinterDriver -Name “Your-Printer-Name” In the command, update the printer name with the name that appears in step 3. The quotation marks are required if the name includes spaces. For example, this command removes the “Microsoft Software Printer Driver” from Windows 10 Home: Remove-PrinterDriver -Name “Microsoft Software Printer Driver”

Once you complete the steps, the printer driver will no longer be available on the system. You may need to repeat the steps to uninstall other printers as necessary on Windows 10.