Hyper-V over SMB – Sample Configurations

This post describes a few different Hyper-V over SMB sample configurations with increasing levels of availability. Not all configurations are recommended for production deployment, since some do not provide continuous availability. The goal of the post is to show how one can add redundancy, Storage Spaces and Failover Clustering in different ways to provide additional fault … Continue reading Hyper-V over SMB – Sample Configurations →

Sample PowerShell Scripts for Storage Spaces, standalone Hyper-V over SMB and SQLIO testing

These are some PowerShell snippets to configure a specific set of systems for Hyper-V over SMB testing.Posting it here mainly for my own reference, but maybe someone else out there is configuring a server with 48 disks split into 6 pools of 8 disks.These systems do not support SES (SCSI Enclosure Services) so I could … Continue reading Sample PowerShell Scripts for Storage Spaces, standalone Hyper-V over SMB and SQLIO testing →

Minimum version of Mellanox firmware required for running SMB Direct in Windows Server 2012

There are two blog posts explaining in great detail what you need to do to use Mellanox ConnectX-2 or ConnectX-3 cards to implement RDMA networking for SMB 3.0 (using SMB Direct). You can find them at: Deploying Windows Server 2012 with SMB Direct (SMB over RDMA) and the Mellanox ConnectX-3 using 10GbE/40GbE RoCE – Step … Continue reading Minimum version of Mellanox firmware required for running SMB Direct in Windows Server 2012 →

How much traffic needs to pass between the SMB Client and Server before Multichannel actually starts?

One smart MVP was doing some testing and noticed that SMB Multichannel did not trigger immediately after an SMB session was established. So, he asked: How much traffic needs to pass between the SMB Client and Server before Multichannel actually starts? Well... SMB Multichannel works slightly different in that regard depending on whether the client is … Continue reading How much traffic needs to pass between the SMB Client and Server before Multichannel actually starts? →

Is accessing files via a loopback share the same as using a local path?

Question from a user (paraphrased): When we access a local file via loopback UNC path, is this the same as accessing via the local path? I mean, is "C:myfoldera.txt" equal to "myservermysharea.txt" or I'll be using TCP/IP in any way?Answer from SMB developer: When accessing files over loopback, the initial connect and the metadata operations … Continue reading Is accessing files via a loopback share the same as using a local path? →

How to use the new SMB 3.0 WMI classes in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 (from PowerShell)

If you're an IT Administrator, you're likely to use the new SMB PowerShell cmdlets to manage your SMB 3.0 file shares. You can find details about those at http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/06/27/the-basics-of-smb-powershell-a-feature-of-windows-server-2012-and-smb-3-0.aspx However, if you're a developer, you might be interested in learning about the WMI v2 classes that are behind those PowerShell cmdlets. They are easy to … Continue reading How to use the new SMB 3.0 WMI classes in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 (from PowerShell) →

How does New-SmbShare know whether the new share should be standalone, clustered or scale-out?

I got a question the other day about one of the scripts I published as part of a step-by-step for Hyper-V over SMB, Here's the relevant line from that script: New-SmbShare -Name VMS3 -Path C:ClusterStorageVolume1VMS -FullAccess FST2.TestAdministrator, FST2.TestFST2-HV1$, FST2.TestFST2-HV2$, FST2.TestFST2-HVC$ The question was related to how does New-SmbShare know to create the share on the … Continue reading How does New-SmbShare know whether the new share should be standalone, clustered or scale-out? →

New ESG Lab Validation Report shows Performance of Windows Server 2012 Storage and Networking

There is a new ESG report out that shows the Storage and Networking performance of Windows Server 2012. It highlights the findings around a few key new features, including: Storage Spaces SMB 3.0 File Servers Deduplication CHKDSK Online Scanning Offloaded Data Transfers (ODX) The numbers speak for themselves and the report provides plenty of tables, … Continue reading New ESG Lab Validation Report shows Performance of Windows Server 2012 Storage and Networking →

Windows Server 2012 File Server Tip: New per-share SMB client performance counters provide great insight

Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 include a new set of performance counters that can greatly help understand the performance of the SMB file protocol. These include new counters on both the server side and the client side. In this post, I wanted to call your attention to the new client-side counters that show the … Continue reading Windows Server 2012 File Server Tip: New per-share SMB client performance counters provide great insight →

Windows Server 2012 File Server Tip: Use PowerShell to find the free space on the volume behind an SMB file share

A while back, I showed how to use PowerShell V2 and our old SMB WMIv1 object to explain how to find the free space behind a file share (essentially the free space for the volume that contains the file share). That post is available at http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/04/08/using-powershell-v2-to-gather-info-on-free-space-on-the-volumes-of-your-remote-file-server.aspx. While that post was a good example of how … Continue reading Windows Server 2012 File Server Tip: Use PowerShell to find the free space on the volume behind an SMB file share →