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 →

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 →

Adding Storage Performance to the Test-StorageHealth.ps1 script

A few weeks ago, I published a script to the TechNet Script Center that gathers health and capacity information for a Windows Server 2012 R2 storage cluster. This script checks a number of components, including clustering, storage spaces, SMB file shares and core storage. You can get more details at http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2014/07/27/powershell-script-for-storage-cluster-health-test-published-to-the-technet-script-center.aspx From the beginning, … Continue reading Adding Storage Performance to the Test-StorageHealth.ps1 script →

Sample C# code for using the latest WMI classes to manage Windows Storage

This blog post shows a bit of C# code to use the Windows Storage Management API (SM-API) classes that were introduced in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. You can find a list of these classes at class described at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh830612.aspx, including MSFT_PhysicalDisk, MSFT_StoragePool or MSFT_VirtualDisk. I found a number of examples with the … Continue reading Sample C# code for using the latest WMI classes to manage Windows Storage →

PowerShell tips for building objects with custom properties and special formatting

I’ve been building a number of scripts that query information using PowerShell. To create those, I used some PowerShell tricks to make the output look just like I wanted. This post is a compilation of these tricks. The first few tricks are simple, but they grow increasingly complex towards the end. The examples here … Continue reading PowerShell tips for building objects with custom properties and special formatting →

Storage Developer Conference – SDC 2013 slides now publicly available. Here are the links to Microsoft slides…

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) hosted the 10th Storage Developer Conference (SDC) in the Hyatt Regency in beautiful Santa Clara, CA (Silicon Valley) on the week of September 16th 2013. This week, the presentation slides were made publicly available. You can find them all at http://snia.org/events/storage-developer2013/presentations13 For those focused on Microsoft technologies, here are some … Continue reading Storage Developer Conference – SDC 2013 slides now publicly available. Here are the links to Microsoft slides… →

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) →

Programming Windows Phone 7 by Charles Petzold – Download free PDF and start developing your WP7 Apps

I just discovered this interesting book on "Programming Windows Phone 7", by Charles Petzold (yes, that's the author of the famous "Programming Windows" series of books). This Microsoft Press title is available as a free PDF download and is over 1,000 pages long. Here's the table of contents: Part 1: The Basics Chapter 1: Hello, … Continue reading Programming Windows Phone 7 by Charles Petzold – Download free PDF and start developing your WP7 Apps →

Lessons learned creating BingMatrix in ASP.NET and Azure (goals, http requests, threads, progress message and postbacks)

I have spent my last few weekends building an ASP.NET web application that sends multiple queries to Bing and displays the results in a table. I called it BingMatrix and you can read more about what it does and how it works in the blog post titled “BingMatrix – A Windows Azure application that provides … Continue reading Lessons learned creating BingMatrix in ASP.NET and Azure (goals, http requests, threads, progress message and postbacks) →

BingMatrix – A Windows Azure application that provides a fun way to mine data from Bing

I wanted to share a little application I put together using Windows Azure. It uses Bing queries to find out how the popularity of a specific set of keywords on a specific set of sites. I actually created this for my own use while researching how frequently some registry keys are mentioned on Microsoft support, … Continue reading BingMatrix – A Windows Azure application that provides a fun way to mine data from Bing →