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

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)

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?

Windows Server Storage Sessions from TechEd Europe 2014 (includes links to recordings and slides)

This blog post includes a list of the Storage-related sessions from TechEd Europe 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. You can use it as an easy reference to the Storage sessions, including links to the recordings and the slides for each one.   Day Time Code Title (with link to recording and slides) Speaker(s) Tue 8:30 AM … Continue reading Windows Server Storage Sessions from TechEd Europe 2014 (includes links to recordings and slides)

Storage Quality of Service Guide Released for Windows Server Technical Preview

  As part of the Windows Server Technical Preview released a few weeks ago, we announced the evolution of the Storage Quality of Service (Storage QoS) feature. Now, in addition to that TechNet page with an overview, we released the Storage QoS Step-by-Step Guide.   An Overview of Storage QoS   Storage Quality of Service … Continue reading Storage Quality of Service Guide Released for Windows Server Technical Preview

SmbStorageTier.ps1: A simple way to pin files to tiers in Scale-Out File Servers

  Storage Spaces Tiering   Storage Spaces has an interesting new feature introduced in Windows Server 2012 R2: you can create a single space using different types of disk (typically HDDs and SSDs) and it will automatically move hot data to the fast tier and cold data to the slow tier. You can read more … Continue reading SmbStorageTier.ps1: A simple way to pin files to tiers in Scale-Out File Servers

DiskSpd, PowerShell and storage performance: measuring IOPs, throughput and latency for both local disks and SMB file shares

  1. Introduction   I have been doing storage-related demos and publishing blogs with some storage performance numbers for a while, and I commonly get questions such as “How do you run these tests?” or “What tools do you use to generate IOs for your demos?”. While it’s always best to use a real workload … Continue reading DiskSpd, PowerShell and storage performance: measuring IOPs, throughput and latency for both local disks and SMB file shares

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

Using file copy to measure storage performance – Why it’s not a good idea and what you should do instead

1. Introduction Every once in a while I hear from someone that they believe they have a performance problem with their Scale-Out File Server. When I dig a little further, it’s very common to find that file copies are being used as the mechanism for measuring storage performance for all kinds of scenarios. This blog … Continue reading Using file copy to measure storage performance – Why it’s not a good idea and what you should do instead