PowerShell Examples: Calculating very small and very large numbers

This blog is part of a series that shows example PowerShell code for those learning the language. This time we’re using PowerShell to find some very small and very large floating point numbers. The principal here is that if you keep dividing a number by 2, there will be a point where the number is … Continue reading PowerShell Examples: Calculating very small and very large numbers →

New version of the Storage Spaces physical disk validation PowerShell script

The Storage Spaces team has just published a new version of the Storage Space disk validation script written in PowerShell. This script makes sure that the physical disks in a system have everything that is needed by Storage Spaces. That includes checking functional requirements and performance characteristics. In the same way that we ask you … Continue reading New version of the Storage Spaces physical disk validation PowerShell script →

Case Studies on Storage Spaces, Scale-Out File Servers with SMB3 or both

There are many customers out there using Storage Spaces and Scale-Out File Servers with SMB3 since their initial release in Windows Server 2012 a few years back. Every once in a while, someone will ask me for details on how these technologies were deployed by customers. The best source for those examples is the Microsoft … Continue reading Case Studies on Storage Spaces, Scale-Out File Servers with SMB3 or both →

Using PowerShell to select Physical Disks for use with Storage Spaces

1. Introduction If you use PowerShell to configure Storage Spaces, you probably noticed that selecting physical disks is an important part of the process. You must select disks to create a pool and you might also need to do it also when you create a virtual disk using a subset of the disks. … Continue reading Using PowerShell to select Physical Disks for use with Storage Spaces →

Windows Server Technical Preview – Storage Survival Guide (links to articles, blogs, downloads)

This blog post offers a collection of links to the publicly available content for those experimenting with the Windows Server Technical Preview, with focus in Storage. Blog posts about the Windows Server Technical Preview An early look at the future of the datacenter from Microsoft Storage Replica Guide Released for Windows Server Technical Preview … Continue reading Windows Server Technical Preview – Storage Survival Guide (links to articles, blogs, downloads) →

Storage Spaces Survival Guide (Links to presentations, articles, blogs, tools)

In this post, I'm sharing my favorite links related to Storage Spaces in Windows Server 2012 R2. This includes TechEd Presentations, TechNet articles, Blogs and tools related to Storage Spaces in general and more specifically about its deployment in a Failover Cluster or Scale-Out File Server configuration. It's obviously not a complete reference (there are … Continue reading Storage Spaces Survival Guide (Links to presentations, articles, blogs, tools) →

Using PowerShell to create a custom reference for Azure PowerShell cmdlets and parameters

I was looking into the list of Azure PowerShell cmdlets and I could not find a page with all cmdlets and parameters in a single list. There are individual pages for each cmdlet on TechNet, but not all cmdlets in one page. There is a list of all cmdlets in one page, but that does … Continue reading Using PowerShell to create a custom reference for Azure PowerShell cmdlets and parameters →

Migrating File Servers from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012 R2

Introduction If you have SMB File Servers running Windows Server 2003, you are probably already aware that the extended support for that OS will end on July 14, 2015. You can read more about this at: http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2014/08/26/best-practices-for-windows-server-2003-end-of-support-migration.aspx. If you're still using Windows Server 2003, you should be planning your migration to a newer version … Continue reading Migrating File Servers from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012 R2 →

Testing Windows Server and the Scale-Out File Server – What should your lab look like?

With the release of Windows Server Technical Preview, a common question comes to the surface again. What kind of lab hardware do I need to play with it? Ideally, you would get one of those new Cloud Platform System (CPS) racks with a 32-node Hyper-V cluster, a 4-node Scale-Out File Server and 4 JBODs … Continue reading Testing Windows Server and the Scale-Out File Server – What should your lab look like? →