Storage Spaces Registry Location in Windows

Windows Storage Spaces manages pooled drives and virtual disks through underlying system drivers and configuration entries stored in the Windows Registry. While Storage Spaces metadata is primarily written directly to the headers of the physical disks themselves, the operating system tracks active pool status, driver parameters, and device representations within several specific Registry keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. This guide outlines the exact Registry paths used to inspect active storage pools and Storage Spaces configurations in regedit.

Primary Registry Paths for Storage Spaces

To view the active Storage Spaces configuration and driver parameters, open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and navigate to the following paths:

1. Storage Spaces Driver Parameters

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\spaceport\Parameters

The spaceport.sys driver is the core engine for Storage Spaces. The Parameters subkey contains global configuration values, operational flags, and settings that govern how the driver discovers and handles storage pools during boot.

2. Storage Spaces Control and Pool State

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageSpaces

This key contains configuration settings related to the Storage Spaces management layer, including telemetry, pool provisioning parameters, and configuration cache entries used by the OS.

3. Storage Pool Device Enumeration

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\STORAGE\VolumePool

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\SPACEPORT

Under these paths, Windows registers the instantiated virtual disks and volume pools as detected hardware devices. Each active pool and virtual disk created via Storage Spaces receives a hardware ID, device properties, and friendly names mapped under these enumeration keys.

How to Access the Keys

  1. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box.
  2. Type regedit and press Enter.
  3. Copy and paste any of the paths listed above into the address bar at the top of the Registry Editor window.
  4. Expand the subkeys to inspect individual pool IDs, device parameters, and driver operational states.

Understanding Storage Spaces Metadata Storage

While the Registry contains runtime parameters and device enumeration keys for the active operating system session, the true authoritative configuration metadata (pool membership, resiliency type, column count, and slab allocation) is written directly to hidden sectors on each physical disk in the pool. This design ensures that if the physical drives are moved to another Windows machine, the spaceport driver can read the metadata directly from the disks and automatically import the pool.