The official blog of the Windows and Windows Server storage engineering teams
Hello, Claus here again. Today we are going to take a look at a new device from Samsung, the SZ985, which is marketed as a ultra-low latency NVMe SSD based on Samsung Z-NAND flash memory and a new NVMe controller. It offers ~3GB/s throughput, and random read operations in 20µs with capacities up to 3.2TB… Read more
Hi folks, Ned here again. We have released a new survey for on-premises object storage on Windows. We want to better understand your specific object storage workloads in the datacenter and design these products to meet your needs. The survey will only take a couple of minutes and is completely anonymous. Click here for survey … Read more
Hello, Claus here again. I am very excited about how the RDMA networking landscape is evolving. We took RDMA mainstream in Windows Server 2012 when we introduced SMB Direct and even more so in Windows Server 2016 where Storage Spaces Direct is leveraging SMB Direct for east-west traffic. More partners than ever offer RDMA enabled… Read more
Hi! I’m Cosmos. Follow me on Twitter @cosmosdarwin. Background Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016 features a built-in, persistent, read and write cache to maximize storage performance. You can read all about it at Understanding the cache in Storage Spaces Direct. In all-flash deployments, NVMe drives typically cache for SATA/SAS SSDs; in hybrid deployments,… Read more
Hi folks, KB4025334 prevents a critical data corruption issue with NTFS sparse files in Windows Server 2016. This helps avoid data corruptions that may occur when using Data Deduplication in Windows Server 2016, although all applications and Windows components that use sparse files on NTFS benefit from applying this update. Installation of this KB helps… Read more
Hello, Claus here again. As you have probably noticed by now, we have a great ongoing collaboration with Intel. In this blog post we are going to look at Windows Server 2016 Storage Spaces Direct on Intel’s latest and greatest hardware, which includes a new processor family, Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors, an iWARP RDMA network… Read more
Hi folks, Ned here again. This blog post contains all products requiring SMB1, where the vendor explicitly states this in their own documentation or communications, or where a customer has reported it and shown some degree of proof without vendor refutation. This list is not complete and you should never treat it as complete; check… Read more
We’re excited to announce several improvements to the Work Folders clients for Windows 10 version 1703, Android and iOS: Remote users can securely access their files on the Work Folders server using Azure Active Directory Application Proxy Improved single sign on experience (fewer authentication prompts) when using Azure Active Directory Application Proxy Group policy setting… Read more
We’re excited to announce Work Folders now supports using Azure Active Directory Application Proxy to enable remote users to securely access their files on the Work Folders server. Work Folders supports using VPN, Web Application Proxy (WAP) or a third-party reverse proxy solution to enable remote users access to their files on the Work Folders… Read more
Hello, Claus here again. By now, you have probably seen some of my blogs and demos on Storage Spaces Direct performance. One of Storage Spaces Direct’s advantages is RDMA networking support that lowers latency and reduces CPU consumption. I often get the question “Is RDMA required for Storage Spaces Direct”. The answer to this question… Read more