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Highly available Windows Server 2012 systems using shared, directly-attached storage can be built using either Storage Spaces or a validated clustered RAID controller. Option 1 – Storage Spaces You can build a highly available shared SAS system today using Storage Spaces. Storage...

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...

A new white paper about Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Architecture and Deployment (including the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3) has just been published. Here's an outline of this content: Introduction Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Overview Comparing Windows Server Operating...

Scott M. Johnson has published two new blogs post on the Windows Storage Server blog: The first post is a compilation of links covering all kinds of Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 content. http://blogs.technet.com/b/storageserver/archive/2010/11/16/windows-storage-server-2008-r2-references.aspx ...

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...

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...

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...

I was glad to see that tje TechNet public site was recently updated to include detailed documentation on Windows Storage Server 2008 and iSCSI Software Target 3.2. See below the main two top items that were posted, along with the topics covered under each one: Windows Storage Server 2008 ...

The Windows Storage Server Team just released a new 30-page white paper on "Configuring Failover Clusters with Windows Storage Server 2008". This paper will guide you through the process of configuring the networks, domains and clustering features, including performance recommendations for a pair...

Scott M. Johnson, a Program Manager in the Windows Storage Server team, has just published a new blog post that might give you some ideas on different ways to use the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target. He outlines six different uses for it: 1) Consolidate storage for multiple application servers. 2...

Introduction The Distributed File System Namespaces (DFS-N) service is a role service of the File Service role for Windows Server. For a basic description of DFS-N, start with http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2009/03/10/the-basics-of-the-windows-server-2008-distributed-file-system-dfs.aspx...

The File Server Capacity Tool (FSCT) is a capacity planning software for CIFS/SMB/SMB2 file servers. It’s also useful for identifying performance bottlenecks. FSCT results include the maximum number of users for a file server configuration, throughput for that configuration and performance counters for...

Microsoft released the File Server Migration Toolkit version 1.2 (FSMT 1.2), which will help you migrate file shares from computers running Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Storage Server 2008 to computers running Windows 2003 Server, Windows...

This blog post is obsolete, since new versions of Windows Storage Server and the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target are now available on MSDN and Technet. For details on new releases, check http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/09/27/windows-storage-server-2008-r2-and-the-microsoft-iscsi-software...

I am glad to share that Windows Storage Server 2008 (WSS 2008) and the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.2 have been released to the Microsoft OEM partners. This is the successor to Windows Storage Server 2003 (WSS 2003) and Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS 2003). I have been working...

Overview In this post, I will show all the steps required to run Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target. We will cover the specific scenario of a standalone Windows Server 2008 server (as opposed to a clustered one) on a full install (as opposed to a core install)...

Microsoft just announced the release of Microsoft File Server Migration Toolkit 1.1, which will help you migrate file shares from computers running Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server and Windows Server 2008 to computers running Windows 2003 Server and Windows Server 2008...

Scott Johnson added another post to the Storage Server blog, this time focusing on the History of the Windows Storage Server, all the way up to the Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 Refresh, released in August of 2007. Did you know, for instance, that the WUDSS 2003 Refresh introduced support...

Scott Johnson (Program Manager for the Windows Storage Server product line) has just added the the first post on a brand new blog on Windows Storage Server. This first post is a comprehensive list of all the key features of Windows Storage Server and Windows Unified Data Storage Server. Check it...

It’s very common for a server running Windows Storage Server (WSS) with the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target or Windows Unified Data Storage Server (WUDSS) to include a RAID controller and many hard drives in the box. I got a question on exactly how to configure RAID volumes for this kind of setup. The...

Introduction This post describes how to configure the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target offered with Windows Storage Server, including the steps to configure both the iSCSI Target and the iSCSI Initiator. Note: The iSCSI Target is the server (where the iSCSI virtual disks are actually stored) and...

I recently delivered a presentation on Highly Available Clusters focused on the scenarios related to Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 (WSS 2003 R2) and Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003 (WUDSS 2003). The scenarios ended up being quite generic, so I decided to share them here. High Availability...

This post is OBSOLETE. Please check the updated post at: http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/01/07/installing-the-evaluation-version-of-wudss-2003-refresh-and-the-microsoft-iscsi-software-target-version-3-1-on-a-vm.aspx --- Overview These are step-by-step instructions on how...

I just wanted to share my experience around the use of Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering. I worked on this basically for a demonstration and I ended up doing quite a lot of work around it. This was mainly because I like to build my demo systems from scratch as opposed to just downloading ready...