1. Introduction Windows Server 2012 includes a new feature called SMB Multichannel, part of the SMB 3.0 protocol, which increases the network performance and availability for File Servers. 1.1. Benefits SMB Multichannel allows file servers to use multiple network connections simultaneously...

If you’re reading up on Windows Server 2012, you probably saw that using file storage for your Hyper-V and SQL Server data is one of our key new scenarios. You can read more about this in the TechNet article called “High-Performance, Continuously Available File Share Storage for Server Applications”...

Robert Smith (Platforms Field Engineer) has recently posted a new blog that cover one important area of Windows performance that few people understand well. In his blog post he talks about how to use Windows Performance Toolkit (WPT) in general and the XPerf tool in particular. Xperf.exe is the command...

One of the preferred methods for creating VMs in a shared environment is to have one or more base VHDs that you use as a template for new VMs. While having a base VHD is a constant, there are a few different methods to choose when you implement your provisioning process for new VMs. This post looks at...

1. Introduction 1.1. Overview In this document, I am sharing all the steps I used to create a Windows Server 2012 Beta demo, so you can experiment with some of the new technologies yourself. You only need a single computer (the specs are provided below) and the ISO file with the Windows Server...

Bill Laing, Corporate VP for Server and Cloud, just announced the availability of Windows Server 2012 Beta . That means you can now install this pre-release version of the OS, which brings a number of Storage and Continuous Availability enhancements. We started talking about those back in the //build...

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) hosted the 8th Storage Developer Conference (SDC) in the Hyatt Regency in beautiful Santa Clara, CA (Silicon Valley) earlier this year. As usual, Microsoft was the underwriter of the CIFS/SMB/SMB2 PlugFest, which was co-located with the SDC event. ...

Last month at the //Build/ conference we had a large number of presentations delivered and made available to download and stream. Several Microsoft Partners and Developers that are focused on Storage, Networking or Hyper-V have asked me for a list of links to help them find the Widows Server 8 sessions...

The new Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 is commonly deployed to provide data storage for servers that boot from a local hard drive. However, there are interesting cost savings and management advantages in deploying servers that have no local disk at all and get their syste and boot volumes from the...

If you work with storage, you probably already heard about the “4K Sector Drives”, “Advanced Format Drives” and “512e drives”. These new “4K sector drives” abandon the traditional use of 512 bytes per sector in favor of a new structure that uses 4096 bytes...

We just got an updated version of the “iSCSI Initiator Users Guide for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2“ posted on the Microsoft Download Center by Bruce Langworthy, the iSCSI Initiator PM. Here’s a summary of the contents of this 82-page Word document: · Microsoft...

Introduction For the last few years, I’ve been blogging about the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target and its many uses related to Windows Server Failover Clustering, Hyper-V and other server scenarios. Today, Microsoft has made this software publicly available to all users of Windows Server 2008...

Introduction The SQL CAT team has posted a blog last year about the "Top 10 hidden gems in SQL Server 2008 R2", which included the support for placing SQL database files on an SMB network file share. This works even better if you use the SMB2 version of the protocol, which is included in Windows Server...

A new white paper covering "NTFS CHKDSK Best Practices and Performance" was posted today at microsoft.com/downloads, covering the CHKDSK improvement in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This was first highlighted in a blog post by Claus Joergensen in the Filecab blog. Claus mentioned: "Today,...

During an internal conference this week I came across a group at Microsoft Services that works directly with customers that are deploying SQL Server to support line-of-business applications like like SAP and JD Edwards. They pointed me to their recent blog (started in September 2010) which already produced...

I recently blogged about the PowerShell cmdlets included with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 . That included the details on all the 10 cmdlets available, including the one used to create VHD files, which is New-IscsiVirtualDisk. If you’re paying close attention to the list of new features...

1. Overview One of the new features in the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 (included in Windows Storage Server 2008 R2) is the inclusion of PowerShell cmdlets for management. In this blog post, we will examine the details of the cmdlets available to manage targets and their associated virtual...

After this post was release, the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3 for Windows Server 2008 R2 became available as a public download. For details, check http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2011/04/04/microsoft-iscsi-software-target-3-3-for-windows-server-2008-r2-available-for-public-download...

If you’re following me on Twitter, you probably noticed I am attending SNIA’s Software Developer’s Conference 2010 (SDC 2010) and the CIFS/SMB/SMB2 PlugFest this week. The agenda for the event is published at http://www.snia.org/events/storage-developer2010/agenda2010 . Here are some random notes from...

Here are some random notes I took during a presentation to Storage IO Performance this morning: SSDs: Still not a 'solid state' business - http://bit.ly/cdqA1b - "False expectations" and why they "won't replace hard drives" A PRAM and NAND Flash Hybrid Architecture for High-Performance Embedded...

1 - Overview When you set up a File Server, there are advantages to configuring multiple Network Interface Cards (NICs). However, there are many options to consider depending on how your network and services are laid out. Since networking (along with storage) is one of the most common bottlenecks...

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is hosting the 7th Storage Developer Conference (SDC) in the Hyatt Regency in beautiful Santa Clara, CA (Silicon Valley) on the week of September 20th. As usual, Microsoft is underwriting the CIFS/SMB/SMB2 Plugfest, which is co-located with the SDC event...

I am often asked about File Server performance. The usual conversation evolves into a discussion on what registry settings would be recommend to make a file server work faster. We typically end up talking about specific settings for performance tuning and how they might affect application compatibility...

Every once in a while the question comes up. How come my IT department is charging me tens of dollars per gigabyte of storage for my application per month when I can pay less than 15 cents per gigabyte at Best Buy (where a 2TB drive might cost less than $150)? The conversation then includes...

Overview This blog post covers a few different ways to consolidate multiple SMB file servers and keep exposing the consolidated file shares under the old share paths. Scenario Let’s say you currently have 3 file servers named file1.contoso.local, file2.contoso.local and file3.contoso...