Logo
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows Azure
Windows Server
Windows Phone
EPL Standings
 
 
Windows Server

Windows Server 2012 : Deploying Storage Spaces (part 1) - Understanding Storage Spaces - Concepts and terminology

- 2015 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 - The Legend Returns
- Wagon Audi Allroad Vs. Subaru Outback
- 996 Carrera 4S is Driving Perfection
3/6/2014 3:16:48 AM

1. Understanding Storage Spaces

Storage virtualization basically involves doing two things:

  • Taking physical storage devices and creating virtual pools of storage from them.

  • Provisioning shared storage from these pools as the need arises.

For example, a storage-virtualization solution might allow you to pool together several internal and externally-connected hard drives into a single pool of storage. You could then provision portions of this storage for your various file servers without needing to be concerned about which drives are being used by each file server or where on the drives any particular data is being stored. The benefits of this approach are obvious to experienced administrators and include the following:

  • Increased flexibility You can create new pools and expand existing ones without adding any new physical storage devices.

  • Increased scalability Additional physical storage can easily be added and used when needed to meet increasing business demands.

  • Increased elasticity You can pre-allocate storage capacity by using thin provisioning. Capacity can be increased to meet growing demand even when the underlying physical storage is insufficient.

  • Increased efficiency You can reclaim storage capacity when it is no longer needed to use physical storage resources more efficiently.

  • Lower cost By using low-cost, commodity-based hard drives, you can create large pools of storage. These pools can easily meet the needs of small and midsized businesses.

Windows Server 2012 now includes support for storage virtualization through a new feature called Storage Spaces, which allows you to aggregate internal and external physical disks into pools of low-cost storage that can have different levels of resiliency. These pools are simple to administer, can be allocated either manually or automatically, can be delegated for administration purposes, and can be delivered using either thin or fixed provisioning.

1.1 Concepts and terminology

To implement and use Storage Spaces, you first need to understand its basic concepts and terminology. The following is a list of terminology associated with Storage Spaces:

  • Storage Management Application Programming Interface (SMAPI) A collection of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interfaces for platform-neutral and vendor-neutral management of storage that are included in Windows Server 2012 and in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM).

  • Storage Management Provider (SMP) An interface that provides a mechanism for discovering, managing, and provisioning storage. Windows Server 2012 includes support for the following types of SMPs:

    • Storage Spaces provider This SMP is included in Windows Server 2012 and is used for implementing storage virtualization using Storage Spaces.

    • Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) providers These providers support the Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S) standard of the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) and can be used for platform-neutral and vendor-neutral implementation of storage virtualization using third-party storage solutions such as SANs.

  • Storage subsystem Uses an SMP to expose physical storage devices so that they can be virtualized into storage pools.

  • Storage pool A collection of physical disks that can be used to create virtual disks. A single storage pool can consist of physical disks having different sizes and using different storage interconnects. For example, you could mix and match Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives to create a pool.

You can create and delete storage pools to manage virtualized storage in your environment. Each physical disk can be included in only one storage pool at a time, and once you add a physical disk to a pool, the disk is no longer exposed in Disk Management for directly creating partitions or volumes on.

  • Primordial storage pool The default pool that contains all physical storage devices in a storage system that the Storage Spaces provider is able to enumerate, regardless of whether these devices have been added to other pools or not. Physical disks are displayed in the primordial pool only when they have no partitions or volumes created on them. If there are no available unused disks connected to your file server, the primordial pool is not displayed in Server Manager.

  • Virtual disk A logical unit number (LUN) that has been provisioned from a storage pool. Virtual disks behave like physical disks but have increased flexibility, scalability, and elasticity because they represent virtualized storage instead of physical storage. Virtual disks are also sometimes referred to as spaces.

  • Volume A portion of a virtual disk that has been formatted with a file system such as NTFS.

  • Share A folder in the file system of a volume that has been made accessible over the network to users who have appropriate permissions.

Important

Dynamic disks and Storage Spaces

In previous versions of Windows Server, you could use dynamic disks for implementing software RAID 0 or RAID 1 redundancy for both the boot volume and data volumes. Dynamic disks were first introduced in Windows Server 2003 and were implemented using the new Virtual Disk Service (VDS) API included in that platform. Beginning with Windows Server 2012, however, the VDS API was superseded by SMAPI. This means that dynamic disks are now considered deprecated for all usages except mirroring the boot volumes. Storage Spaces should now be used instead of dynamic disks when you need to provide resiliency for data volumes. In addition, the following tools that rely on the VDS APIs should also be considered deprecated:

  • DiskPart command

  • DiskRAID command

  • Disk Management MMC snap-in

Note that you can still use these commands on Windows Server 2012, but they will not work with Storage Spaces or with any SMAPI components or tools.

Top Search -----------------
- Windows Server 2008 R2 : Work with RAID Volumes - Understand RAID Levels & Implement RAID
- Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration : Managing Printers with the Print Management Console
- Configuring Email Settings in Windows Small Business Server 2011
- Windows Server 2008 R2 : Configuring Folder Security, Access, and Replication - Implement Permissions
- Monitoring Exchange Server 2010 : Monitoring Mail Flow
- Windows Server 2008 R2 :Task Scheduler
- Windows Server 2008 R2 : File Server Resource Manager
- Windows Server 2008 R2 : Installing DFS
- Exchange Server 2010 : Managing Anti-Spam and Antivirus Countermeasures
- Windows Server 2008 R2 : Configuring Folder Security, Access, and Replication - Share Folders
Other -----------------
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 8) - Connecting to Exchange 2003 Routing Groups
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 7) - Viewing and Managing Receive Connectors
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 6) - Creating Receive Connectors
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 5) - Configuring Send Connector DNS Lookups, Setting Send Connector Limits
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 4) - Viewing and Managing Send Connectors
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 3) - Creating Send Connectors
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 2) - Viewing and Managing Active Directory Site Link Details
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 : Working with SMTP Connectors, Sites, and Links (part 1) - Viewing and Managing Active Directory Site Details
- Administering an Exchange Server 2013 Environment (part 9) - Server Administration
- Administering an Exchange Server 2013 Environment (part 8) - Understanding Archiving
 
 
Most view of day
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 : Qualifying a Lead & Disqualifying a Lead
- Configure the Environment for Exchange Server 2010 (part 1) - Preparing a New Environment for Exchange 2010
- Client Access to Exchange Server 2007 : Using Cached Exchange Mode for Offline Functionality
- Deploying with Windows DS : Configuring Windows DS & Preparing Discover Images
- Microsoft SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services : Installing Dashboard Designer
- Manage the Active Directory Domain Services Schema : Remove Attributes from Ambiguous Name Resolution Filter
- Extending Dynamics AX 2009 (part 1)
- SharePoint 2010 Search : Replacing the SharePoint Search Engine (part 2) - FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint
- BizTalk 2006 : Deploying and Managing BizTalk Applications - Administrative Tools (part 2) - WMI
- Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 : Understanding Status Summarizers (part 3) - Configuring Status Summarizers - Site System Status Summarizer
Top 10
- Windows Server 2012 : Deploying Storage Spaces (part 5) - Implementing Storage Spaces, Using Windows PowerShell
- Windows Server 2012 : Deploying Storage Spaces (part 4) - Planning a Storage Spaces deployment - Availability, Management
- Windows Server 2012 : Deploying Storage Spaces (part 3) - Planning a Storage Spaces deployment - Hardware, Performance, Resiliency
- Windows Server 2012 : Deploying Storage Spaces (part 2) - Understanding Storage Spaces - Fixed vs. thin provisioning
- Windows Server 2012 : Deploying Storage Spaces (part 1) - Understanding Storage Spaces - Concepts and terminology
- Microsoft Visio 2010 : Importing Graphics (part 6) - Importing AutoCAD Drawings - Manipulating an Imported AutoCAD Drawing and Adding Furniture
- Microsoft Visio 2010 : Importing Graphics (part 5) - Importing AutoCAD Drawings - Inserting an AutoCAD File
- Microsoft Visio 2010 : Importing Graphics (part 4) - Adding Excel Charts to Your Diagrams, Importing Vector Graphics
- Microsoft Visio 2010 : Importing Graphics (part 3) - Adding Clip Art to Your Diagrams
- Microsoft Visio 2010 : Importing Graphics (part 2) - Using Images as Shapes in Visio - Handling Bitmaps and Jaggies
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows Azure
Windows Server
Windows Phone
2015 Camaro