This video will look at using Windows Storage Spaces in Windows Server 2012 R2. Windows Storage Spaces is a new system introduced in Windows Server 2012 that allows multiple physical drives to be combined together to form the one virtual drive. This can be done for redundancy or capacity reasons. Download the PDF handout http://ITFreeTraining.com/handouts/server/storage-spaces-demonstration.pdf What is looked at in this video This video will look at seven different topic areas in storage pools and how to configure them in Windows Server 2012 R2. These seven areas are 1) Creating a storage pool 2) Automatic vs manual allocation 3) Creating simple, mirror and parity virtual disks 4) Removing a disk from the storage pool 5) Extending a virtual disk 6) Replacing a failed drive 7) Storage Tiering Demonstration creating a storage pool 1) If you right click on the start icon this will display a menu. Select the run option and then run "Diskmgmt.msc". This will run disk management in full screen mode. Windows Storage Spaces is not managed through Disk Management; however Disk Management will tell you what physical disks are present in the system. 2) To configure Storage Spaces, run Server Manager and then select the option on the left hand side "File and Storage Services". 3) In the File and Storage Services admin tool, if you select Disks this will show all the physical disks installed in the system. This will show all the physical disks in the system including those that are not useable by Windows Storage Spaces. For example, the physical drive that contains the operating system will not be able to be used with Windows Storage Spaces. 4) If you select the option "Storage Pools" this will show any storage pools that have been created. If a physical drive is available but has not been put into a storage pool it will be listed under Primordial. 5) If you right click on Primordial this will give you the option for "New Storage Pool" which will start the new storage pool wizard. 6) The wizard will allow you to enter in a name and description and also select which physical drives you want to use in the storage pool. 7) When selecting the type, it is best to choose all physical drives as automatic or manual but not a mixture of both as this will limit what kinds of virtual disks you can create if the storage pool does not have enough physical drives in it. If you select the option for hotspare, this physical drive will automatic replace another drive in the system if it fails. 8) Once you have selected all the required options, at the end of the wizard you have the create button which will create a storage pool. Once the storage pool is created, virtual disks can be created in the storage pool. Automatic vs manual allocation When creating a Storage Pool, Windows will ask if the physical drives used in the storage pool should be automatic or manual. It is recommended that one or the other is used. In this example 7 physical drives exist. Four have been put in an automatic allocation and 3 in a manual allocation. When this occurs, when creating a new virtual drive, Windows will ask which allocation you want to use. In this case, options like 3 way mirror and dual parity are not available as both pools do not have the minimum of 5 physical disks. If all 7 physical drives were put in the same allocation then all options for virtual drives would be available. Description to long for YouTube. Please see the following link for the rest of the description. http://itfreetraining.com/server#storage-spaces-demonstration See or http://itfreetraining.com for our always free training videos. This is only one video from the many free courses available on YouTube. References "Resilient file system" http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848060(v=vs.85).aspx "Storage Spaces: How to configure Storage Tiers with Windows Server 2012 R2" http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2013/10/21/storage-spaces-how-to-configure-storage-tiers-with-windows-server-2012-r2.aspx "Storage Spaces Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/11382.storage-spaces-frequently-asked-questions-faq.aspx

• published: 25 May 2014
• views: 13747