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Module 2: Configuring Local Storage

Contents:

Lesson in Windows Server

Lesson volumes in Windows Server

Lab: Configuring local storage

Module review and takeaways

Module

Storage components that you must planning and

deploying Server 2016 operating system. organizations require a
great deal of storage because users work regularly with apps that create new files,
which in turn require storage in a central location. When users keep their files for
longer periods, all the while adding more files, storage demands increase. Therefore,
it is important that you know how to manage disks and volumes in Windows Server
2016 needs of your users.

Objectives
After you will be able to:

• Manage disks in Windows Server.

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• Manage volumes in Windows Server.

Lesson 1: Managing disks in Windows Server

Identifying technology that you want critical step in

addressing requirements of your this is only
the first determine the best way storage, and
should following questions:

• Which disks are you going to allocate to a storage solution?

• Which file systems will you use?

This questions.

Lesson
After you will be able to:

• Explain how to select a partition table format.

• Describe the difference between basic and dynamic disk types.

• Explain how to select a file system.

• Describe system.

• Configure System (ReFS).

• Implement

• Determine the disk type that best meets your requirements.

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Selecting a partition table format

A partition partition style) refers to operating

system Server 2016 uses to organize volumes on a
disk. systems, you can decide boot record
(MBR) unique identifier (GUID) partition

MBR

The MBR partition table format is the standard partitioning scheme that has been
used on hard disks since the inception of personal computers in the 1980s. The MBR
partition following characteristics:

• An maximum of four drive.

• It maximum size of 2 terabytes (TB) ( bytes).

• If you initialize a disk larger than 2 TB using MBR, the disks stores volumes only

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up to 2 TB, and the rest of the storage is not used. You must convert the disk to
GPT if you want to use all of its space.

Note: You can use the MBR partition table format for disk drives that never
surpass 2 TB in size. This provides you with a bit more space, because GPT
than MBR.

GPT

The GPT format was introduced with Windows Server 2003 and the Windows XP 64-
bit edition to overcome the limitations of MBR, and to address the requirement of
larger disks. GPT has the following characteristics:

• GPT supports a maximum of 128 partitions per drive.

• A exabytes.

• A zettabytes (ZB), logical block

addressing (

• To boot from a GPT partition table, your BIOS must support GPT.

Note: If your hard disk is larger than 2 TB, you must use the GPT partition
table format.

more information,
Partitioning Table //aka.ms

Selecting a disk type

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When selecting a type of disk for use in Windows Server 2016, you can choose
between disks.

Basic

Basic partition tables that are used Windows

operating system. A basic disk is initialized for simple storage, and contains
partitions, such as primary partitions and extended partitions. You can subdivide
extended partitions into logical volumes.

By default, disk in the Windows disk is

configured easy to convert basic without
any data you convert a dynamic data on
the disk

There is no performance gain when you convert basic disks to dynamic disks, and
some programs cannot address data that is stored on dynamic disks. For these
reasons, most administrators do not convert basic disks to dynamic disks, unless

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they need to use some of the additional volume-configuration options that dynamic
disks provide.

Dynamic disk

Dynamic storage enables you to perform disk and volume management without
having are running Windows dynamic
disk for dynamic storage, dynamic
volumes. used for configuring

When dynamic disks, you create volumes partitions. A

volume is a storage unit that is made from free space on one or more disks. You can
format the volume with a file system and then assign it a drive letter, or configure it
with a mount point.

Required

Regardless disk you use, you must system volume

and the server’s hard disks:

• System volumes The system volume contains the hardware-specific files that the
Windows operating system needs to load, such as Bootmgr and BOOTSECT.bak.
The system volume can be the same as the boot volume, although this is not
required.

• Boot volume contains the Windows files that

are and %Systemroot%\System32 boot volume
can system volume, although

Note: When you install the Windows 10 operating system or the Windows
Server 2016 operating system in a clean installation, a separate system
volume is created to that you can subsequently choose to use to enable

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encrypting the boot volume by using BitLocker Drive Encryption.

Additional Reading: For more information, refer to How Basic Disks and
Volumes Work: http://aka.ms/afknbd

Selecting system

When you configure your disks in Windows Server 2016, you can choose between
file allocation table (FAT), the NTFS file system, and ReFS file systems.

FAT

The simplistic of the file Windows

operating supports. The FAT file system is table that
resides top volume. To protect the volume, copies the FAT file
system are maintained in case one becomes damaged. Additionally, the file allocation
tables and the root directory must be stored in a fixed location, so that the system’s

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boot files can be located.

A disk formatted with the FAT file system is allocated in clusters, and the size of the
volume determines the size of the clusters. When you create a file, an entry is
created in the directory, and the first cluster number containing data is established.
This entry in the table either indicates that this is the last cluster of the file, or points
to the organization to the and files
are given on the drive.

Because with the file allocation release of FAT

could partitions that were less than 2 gigabyte ( size. To enable
larger disks, Microsoft developed FAT32, which supports partitions of up to 2 TB.

FAT does not provide any security for files on the partition. You should never use FAT
or FAT32 as the file system for disks attached to Windows Server 2016 servers.
However, using FAT or FAT32 such as
USB

The especially for flash drives exFAT). You

can use suitable, such as when that
works which requires a disk that larger A number of
media devices support exFAT, such as modern flat panel TVs, media centers, and
portable media players.

NTFS

NTFS system for all Windows beginning with

the Windows operating system. Unlike special
objects no dependence hardware, such as
512-byte addition, in NTFS there are no on the disk,
such as the tables.

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NTFS is an improvement over FAT in several ways, including better support for
metadata, and the use of advanced data structures to improve performance,
reliability, and disk space utilization. NTFS also has additional extensions such as
security access control lists (ACLs), which you can use for auditing, file-system
journaling, and encryption.

NTFS of Windows Server such as

Active Services (AD DS), Volume VSS),
Distributed and file replication provides
a significantly security than FAT or

ReFS

Windows Server 2012 first introduced ReFS to enhance the capabilities of NTFS.
ReFS improves upon NTFS by offering larger maximum sizes for individual files,
directories, other items. Additionally,
resiliency, verification, error

You Windows Server 2016 and file

shares, limitation of error However,
you cannot the boot volume.

Additional Reading:
• For more information, refer to How FAT Works: http://aka.ms/j4j5nm

refer to How NTFS ms/H6hp4c

Sector

When you format a disk using a particular file system, you must specify the
appropriate sector size. In the Format Partition dialog box, the sector size is
described as the Allocation unit size. You can select from 512 bytes through to 64

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KB. To improve performance, try to match the allocation unit size as closely as
possible to the typical file or record size that will be written to the disk. For example, if
you have a database that writes 8,192-byte records, the optimum allocation unit size
would be 8 KB. This setting would allow the operating system to write a complete
record in a single allocation unit on the disk. By using a 4 KB allocation unit size, the
operating system would have to split the record across two allocation units and then
update table with the fact that linked.
By using least as big as the record, workload
on the

Be aware smallest writable unit is the allocation database records

are all 4,096 bytes, and your allocation unit size is 8 KB, then you will be wasting
4,096 bytes per database write.

Check Your Knowledge

Discovery
What currently use on your file continue to use
it?

Show solution

Implementing ReFS

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ReFS is a file system that is based on the NTFS file system. It provides the following
advantages

• Metadata checksums

• Expanded against data corruption

• Maximizes reliability, especially during a loss of power (while NTFS has been
known to experience corruption in similar circumstances)

• Large volume, file, and directory sizes

• Storage virtualization, which makes file

systems

• Redundancy tolerance

• Disk protection against latent disk

• Resiliency to corruptions with recovery for maximum volume availability

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• Shared storage pools across machines for additional failure tolerance and load
balancing

ReFS inherits some features from NTFS, including the following:

• BitLocker

• ACLs

• Update USN) journal

• Change notifications

• Symbolic links, junction points, mount points and reparse points

• Volume snapshots

• File

ReFS features, so it maintains compatibility with

NTFS. programs that run on Windows access files on
ReFS just as they would on NTFS. However, an ReFS-formatted drive is not
recognized when placed in computers that are running Windows Server operating
systems that were released before Windows Server 2012. You can use ReFS drives
with Windows 10 and Windows 8.1, but not with Windows 8.

NTFS volume’s allocation ReFS,

each 64 KB, which you does not
support System (EFS) for files.

As its new file system offers greater meaning better data

verification, error correction, and scalability.

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Compared to NTFS, ReFS offers larger maximum sizes for individual files,
directories, disk volumes, and other items, which the following table lists.

Attribute Limit

Maximum size of a single file Approximately 16 exabytes (EB)

(18.446.

Maximum 2^78 bytes

(2^64 *
Windows bytes

Maximum directory 2^64

Maximum number of directories in a volume 2^64

Maximum file name length 32,000 Unicode characters

Maximum path length 32,000

Maximum 4 petabytes (

Maximum system No limit

Maximum storage pool No limit

When

ReFS is ideal in the following situations:

• Microsoft Hyper-V workloads. ReFS has performance advantages when using

both .

• Storage Windows Server 2016, share

direct this situation, ReFS throughput, but
also capacity disks used by the

• Archive data. The resiliency that ReFS provides means it is a good choice for data
that you want to retain for longer periods.

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Additional Reading: For more information about ReFS, refer to Building the
next generation file system for Windows: ReFS: http://aka.ms/orvy9u

Demonstration: Configuring ReFS

In this see how to:

• Retrieve sector information for the

fsutil

• Reformat volume as a ReFS volume.

• Retrieve the volume and sector information for the ReFS volume by using the
fsutil command.

Demonstration
Retrieve NTFS volume

1. open Disk Management and Simple

available space on Disk 2.

2. Assign drive letter F to the new volume.

3. Run the fsutil fsinfo volumeinfo f: command to view information about the
NTFS volume.

4. sectorinfo f: command information

Reformat

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• Reformat the NTFS volume as an ReFS volume.

Retrieve information for an ReFS volume

1. Run the fsutil fsinfo volumeinfo f: to view information about the ReFS

2. sectorinfo f: command information

3. the output to view the differences the file system

capabilities.

Using .vhd and .vhdx file types

You can manage virtual hard disks within Windows Server 2016 in much the same
way that you can manage physical disks. For example, you can create and attach a

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virtual hard disk and use it for storing data. The virtual hard disk appears as another
drive letter in the disk or folder management tools.

Virtual hard disks are files that represent a traditional hard disk drive. Typically, in
Hyper-V, you use virtual hard disks as the operating system disk and storage disks
for virtual machines. In Windows Server 2016, you can access the same virtual hard
disks system. The virtual following
characteristics:

• In Server 2008 R2, you vhd files.

• In Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows Server 2012 or later, you
also can create and manage .vhdx files, which enable much larger disk sizes and
provide other benefits.

• You can create and attach virtual hard disks by using disk management tools such
as Diskpart.exe. After virtual
hard volumes on the drive
Additionally, newer versions, or newer
versions, virtual hard disks in File

• You Windows Server 2016 to start hard disk using the

native virtual hard disk boot feature. This feature enables you to configure multiple
operating systems on a single computer and choose which operating system to
use when you start the computer.

• You can attach virtual hard disks that you create by using Hyper-V, or that you
create For example, if you disk in
Hyper-V, virtual hard disk to then use the
native feature to start the disk that
you

• You can use virtual hard disks as a deployment technology. For example, you can
use Hyper-V to create a standard image for desktop or server computers, and

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then distribute the image to other computers.

You can use Windows PowerShell to create and manage virtual hard disks in
Windows Server 2016. You must first have the Windows PowerShell Hyper-module
installed. Then, you can use the following commands and cmdlets to create and
manage

• New-vhd create virtual hard specify the

path, vhd or .vhdx defines type. For
example, cmdlet creates a new dynamically vhd file of 10
GB in size.

New-VHD -Path c:\sales.vhd -Dynamic -SizeBytes 10Gb

• Mount-VHD command to mount the volumes

and

• Initialize-disk command to initialize creating

volumes.

• Get-vhd. Use this command to retrieve information about a named .vhd file.

• Set-vhd. Use this cmdlet to configure the .vhd file properties. For example, the
following cmdlet changes the physical sector size of the Sales.vhdx file.

Set-VHD vhdx –PhysicalSectorSizeBytes

• Convert-vhd can use the Convert-vhd cmdlet a VHD to a

VHDX file format.

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One of the benefits of using Windows PowerShell is the ability to script cmdlets, or to
link them by using the pipe (|) operator. This can enable you to perform several tasks
in one step. The following command will create a new virtual hard disk of type .vhd,
and assign it a dynamic size of 10 GB. The .vhd is then mounted, and partitions and
volumes created and formatted.

New-VHD vhd -Dynamic -SizeBytes Mount-VHD

-Passthru |Initialize-Disk -Passthru |New-Partition
-AssignDriveLetter -UseMaximumSize |Format-Volume NTFS
-Confirm: -Force

Selecting a disk type

There of disks available that you storage to

server and client systems. The speed of disks is measured in input/output per second
(IOPS). The most common types of disks are:

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• Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE). EIDE is based on standards that

were created in 1986. The integrated drive electronics (IDE) interface supports
both the Advanced Technology Attachment 2 (ATA-2) and Advanced Technology
Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) standards. Enhanced refers to the ATA-2
(Fast ATA) standard.

Due standards of this technology, limitation on

storage addition, the speed of an a
maximum megabytes (MB) per second ( seldom
used

• Serial Technology Attachment (SATA). 2003, SATA is a

computer bus interface, or channel, for connecting the motherboard or device
adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives.
SATA was designed to replace EIDE. It can use the same low-level commands as
EIDE, but SATA host adapters and devices communicate by using a high-speed
serial conductors. SATA 1.5, 3.0,
and depending on the SATA respectively).

SATA low-cost disks that provide Because

SATA expensive than other drive provide reduced
performance), organizations might choose to deploy when they
require large amounts of storage but not high performance. SATA disks are also
less reliable compared to serial attached SCSI (SAS) disks. A variation on the
SATA interface is eSATA, which is designed to enable high-speed access to
externally attached SATA drives.

• Small interface (SCSI). SCSI physically

connecting data between computers devices.
SCSI introduced in 1978 and became Similar to
EIDE, run over parallel the usage
has run over other mediums. specification of
SCSI had initial speed transfers of 5 MBps. The more recent 2003
implementation, Ultra 640 SCSI (also known as Ultra 5), can transfer data at

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speeds of 640 MBps. SCSI disks provide higher performance than SATA disks,
but are also more expensive.

• SAS. SAS is a further implementation of the SCSI standard. SAS depends on a

point-to-point serial protocol that replaces the parallel SCSI bus technology, and
uses the standard SCSI command set. SAS offers backward-compatibility with
second-generation drives. SAS drives are hours a
day, 24/7) operation in data 000
rotations disks are also the fastest disks.

• Solid-state SSDs are data storage solid-state

memory rather than using the spinning movable read/write
heads that are used in other disks. SSDs use microchips to store the data and do
not contain any moving parts. SSDs provide fast disk access, use less power, and
are less susceptible to failure when dropped than traditional hard disks such as
SAS drives. However, they also are much more expensive per GB of storage.
SSDs interface, so you typically disk drives
with modifications.

Channel, FireWire, or USB-attached available

storage options. They define either the transport bus or the disk type. For
example, USB-attached disks are used mostly with SATA or SSD drives to
store data.

Check

Discovery
What commonly using in your you have a
management provisioning strategy for storage scenarios?

Show solution Reset

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Check Your Knowledge

True or False Question

ReFS supports data deduplication in Windows Server 2016.
True False

Check answer

Lesson volumes in Server

A volume is a usable area of space on one or more physical disks, formatted with a
file system. In Windows Server 2016, you can choose to use several different types
of volumes to create high-performance storage, fault-tolerant storage, or a
combination of both. This lesson explores how create and manage volumes in
Windows Server 2016.

Lesson
After you will be able to:

• Describe Windows Server 2016 disk volumes.

• Manage volumes.

• Configure volumes.

• Resize

• Describe of Independent Disks (

• Explain levels.

What are disk volumes?

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In Windows Server 2016, if you are using dynamic disks, you can create a number of
different

• Simple volume is a volume a single

disk. region on a disk, or consist concatenated
regions. extend a simple volume within extend it to
additional disks. If you extend a simple volume across multiple disks, it becomes a
spanned volume.

• Spanned volumes. A spanned volume is a volume that is created from the free
disk space from multiple disks that are linked together. You can extend a spanned
volume 32 disks. You cannot volume, and
they Therefore, if you lose the entire
spanned

• Striped striped volume is a volume is spread across

two or more physical disks. The data on this type of volume is allocated alternately
and evenly to each of the physical disks. A striped volume cannot be mirrored or

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extended, and is not fault tolerant. This means that the loss of one disk causes the
immediate loss of all the data. Striping also is known as RAID-0.

• Mirrored volumes. A mirrored volume is a fault-tolerant volume that has all data
duplicated onto two physical disks. All of the data on one volume is copied to
another disk to provide data redundancy. If one of the disks fails, you can access
the disk. However, you volume.
Mirroring RAID-1.

• RAID-5 volume is a fault-tolerant data striped

across or more disks. Parity the disk
array. disk fails, you can recreate RAID-5 volume
that was on that failed disk by using the remaining data and the parity. You cannot
mirror or extend a RAID-5 volume.

Options volumes

To create and manage volumes, you can use one of the following tools:

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• Server Manager

• Disk Management

• Diskpart.exe

• Windows PowerShell

Using

To use to create and manage disk Windows Server

2016, open Server Manager, and then complete the following procedure:

1. In the navigation pane, click File and Storage Services, and then under
Volumes, click Disks.

2. necessary, right-click click

3. New Volume.

4. Wizard, on the Before click Next.

5. When all disks with available space display, select the appropriate disk from the
Disk list, and then click Next.

6. When you are prompted to initialize the disk by using GPT, click OK.

7. of the volume page, and then

8. letter or folder page, choose a

volume in which to mount then click Next.

9. On the Select file system settings page, choose the appropriate file system,
enter a volume label, and then click Next.

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10. Finally, click Create to create the new volume.

11. Click Close after the volume has been created.

To manage volumes by using Server Manager, in the Files and Storage Services
node, in the details pane, the
volume Right-click the desired choose from
the following

• Manage And Access Paths.

• Format.

• Extend Volume.

• Delete Volume.

• Properties

Using

You also can use Disk Management to initialize and configure your newly installed
disks. To access Disk Management, open Computer Management, and then click
Disk Management. Use the following procedure to create and configure your
volumes:

1. been initialized, you are them. Click

MBR disks. If you prefer GPT

2. of unallocated space on click one of the

following:

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o New Simple Volume

The
o procedure variesVolume
New Spanned slightly depending on your previous choice. However, to
create a mirrored volume, use the following procedure:
o New Striped Volume
3. In the New Mirrored Volume Wizard, click Next.
o New Mirrored Volume
4. page, select two disks.
Volume
5. allocate across these click Next.

6. Letter or Path page, for the

choose to mount the volume system, and then
click Next.

7. On the Format Volume page, choose a file system and a volume label, and
then click Next.

8. your mirrored volume.

Using

Although Manager or Disk Management simplified

process, sometimes it is more efficient to use a command-line tool. You can use the
Diskpart.exe command-line tool to create and manage your disk volumes by using
the following procedure:

1. command prompt.

2. press Enter.

3. where x is the disk that and then

4. Type Convert dynamic, and then press Enter. This command converts the disk

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into a dynamic disk.

5. Type Create volume simple size=<y> disk=<x> (where x is the disk that you
want to manage, and y is the size of the volume that you want to create), and
then press Enter. You also can create spanned, mirrored, and RAID drives by
changing the word simple.

6. type assign letter=Z

Using

You also can use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to manage disk partitions and
volumes. The following list explains some of the more common disk management
cmdlets:

• Get-disk disks installed in the

• Clear-disk partitions and volumes

• Initialize-disk to initialize a disk

volumes.

• Get-volume. Lists all accessible volumes.

• Format-volume. Enables you to format a volume with NTFS.

Demonstration: Managing volumes

In this see how to:

• Create with Diskpart.

• Create a mirrored volume.

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Demonstration steps
Create a new volume with Diskpart

1. Use the following command-line tools to view the available disks, and then
create and format an NTFS simple volume:

Create volume simple size=500 disk=3

Assign letter = g

2. Management to verify the newly

Create a mirrored volume

• In Disk Management, create a new mirrored volume with the following properties:

o Mirror

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Extending and shrinking a volume

In Windows simple to extend or However, when

you want you must be aware

• You ability to shrink or extend NTFS cannot resize

FAT, FAT32, or exFAT volumes.

• You can only extend ReFS volumes; you cannot shrink them.

• You can extend a volume by using free space both on the same disk and on other
disks. When extend volume with other disks, create dynamic disk with
a Remember though, in a spanned fails, all
data addition, a spanned boot or
system you cannot extend using
another

• When you want to shrink a volume, immovable files such as page files are not
relocated. This means that you cannot reclaim space beyond the location where

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these files are on the volume. If you have the requirement to shrink a partition
further, you need to delete or move the immovable files. For example, you can
remove the page file, shrink the volume, and then add the page file back again.

• If bad clusters exist on the volume, you cannot shrink it.

for shrinking volumes, defragment the

you shrink it. This maximum
space. During the defragmenting can identify

To modify a volume, you can use Disk Management, Diskpart.exe, or the Resize-
Partition cmdlet in Windows PowerShell.

Additional Reading:
• For more information, refer to Extend a Basic Volume: http://aka.ms
/sefpk3

• information, refer to Shrink a Basic //aka.ms

What is RAID?

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RAID is a technology that you can use to configure locally attached storage or a
storage reliability and potentially, RAID
implements combining multiple logical unit
called on the configuration, withstand the
failure physical hard disks contained in
addition performance than is available single disk.

RAID provides redundancy, which is an important component that you can use when
planning and deploying Windows Server 2016 servers. In most organizations, it is
important that the servers are available at all times. Most servers provide highly
redundant redundant power network
adapters. redundancy is to ensure available
even the server fails. By can
provide redundancy for the storage

How works

RAID enables fault tolerance by using additional disks to ensure that the disk

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subsystem can continue to function even if one or more disks in the subsystem fail.
RAID uses two options for enabling fault tolerance:

• Disk mirroring. With disk mirroring, all of the information that is written to one disk
is also written to another disk. If one of the disks fails, the other disk is still
available.

• Parity information is used in to

calculate was stored on a the
server calculates the parity of data
that disks, and then stores this another disk or
across multiple disks. If one of the disks in the RAID array fails, the server can use
the data that is still available on the functional disks along with the parity
information to recreate the data that was stored on the failed disk.

RAID provide potentially better single disks

by distributing writes across multiple when
implementing server can read information disks in the
stripe multiple disk controllers, significant
improvements performance.

Note: Although RAID can provide a greater level of tolerance for disk failure,
you should not use RAID to replace traditional backups. If a server has a
power surge or catastrophic failure and all of the disks fail, then you would
need to rely on standard backups.

Hardware RAID

You implement RAID by installing a RAID server, and you

then configure it by using the RAID controller configuration tool. When you use this
implementation, the RAID configuration is hidden from the operating system.
However, the operating system uses the RAID arrays as single disks. The only

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configuration that you need to perform in the operating system is to create volumes
on the disks.

You can implement software RAID by using all of the disks that are available on the
server. You then configure RAID from within the operating system. Windows Server
2016 supports the use of software RAID, and you can use Disk Management to
configure RAID levels.

When hardware or software following:

• Hardware requires disk controllers that are Most disk

controllers shipped with new servers have this functionality.

• To configure hardware RAID, you need to access the disk controller management
program. Normally, you can access this during the server boot process or by using
a webpage that runs management software.

• Implementing with software RAID system

and additional configuration Because
the managed by the operating configure
one mirror as the boot disk. might need to
modify the boot configuration for the server to start the server. This is not an issue
with hardware RAID, because the disk controller accesses the available disk and
exposes it to the operating system.

• In older servers, you might obtain better performance with software RAID when
using server processor can quickly than
the is not an issue with you could
have performance because you calculations to
the

RAID levels

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When implementing RAID, you need to decide what level of RAID to implement. The
following for each different

Level Performance Space Comments

utilization

RAID 0 Striped set High read and All space on A single disk Use only in
without parity or write performance the disk is failure results in situations
mirroring available the loss of all where you
Data is written data require high
sequentially to performance
can
tolerate data

RAID 1 Can only Frequently

performance the amount used for
space that system and
available boot volumes
to both disks the smallest with hardware
simultaneously disk RAID

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Level Description Performance Space Redundancy Comments

utilization

RAID 2 Data is written in Extremely high Uses one or Can tolerate a Requires that
bits to each performance more disks for single disk failure all disks be
disk, with parity parity synchronized
written to

RAID 3 high Uses one Requires that

performance for parity disks be
synchronized
Rarely used
separate disk or
disks

RAID 4 Data is written in Good read Uses one disk Can tolerate a Rarely used
blocks to each performance, poor for parity single disk failure
disk, with parity write performance

RAID 5 read Uses the Commonly

performance, poor equivalent used for data
write performance one disk storage where
parity performance is
disk, with parity not critical but
spread across maximizing
all disks disk usage is
important

RAID 6 Striped set with Good read Uses the Can tolerate two Commonly
performance, poor equivalent used for data
performance two disks storage where
parity performance is
critical but
maximizing
disk usage and
across all disks availability are
important

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Level Description Performance Space Redundancy Comments

utilization

RAID 0+1 Striped sets in a Very good read Only half the Can tolerate the Not commonly
mirrored set and write disk space is failure of two or used
A set of drives is performance available due more disks
striped, and to mirroring provided that all

RAID good read Only half Frequently

(or 10) and write disk space used in
performance available scenarios
are mirrored to a to mirroring provided that both where
second set of disks in a mirror performance
drives, and then do not fail and
one drive from redundancy are
each mirror is critical, and the
of the
required
additional disks
acceptable

RAID read The equivalent level is

(or 50) performance, of at least recommended
in a stripe set better write disks is used than a single for programs
Drives are performance than for parity RAID level that require
striped with RAID 5 high fault
RAID 5, and tolerance,
then striped capacity, and
without parity random
positioning
performance
Requires at
six drives

common RAID levels are RAID as mirroring),

RAID 5 (also known as striped set with distributed parity), and RAID 1+0 (also
known as mirrored set in a stripe set).

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The following image illustrates the RAID 1 level.

FIGURE 2.1: RAID 1

The following image illustrates the RAID 5 level.

FIGURE

The following illustrates the RAID 6 level.

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The following image illustrates the RAID 1+ 0 level.

Check

Discovery
Should disks with the same amount tolerance?

Show solution Reset

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Lab: Configuring local storage

Scenario
Your manager has asked you to add disk space to a file server that is running on a
virtual machine. This virtual machine will potentially grow significantly in size in the
upcoming might need flexibility in Your
manager optimize the cluster and machines
usage file sizes for storage need to
assess storage and ease of expansion future use.

Objectives
After completing this lab, you should be able to:

• Create and manage virtual hard disks.

• Resize

Lab

Estimated time: 40 minutes

Virtual machines: 20740C-LON-DC1, 20740C-LON-SVR1, and 20740C-LON-HOST1

User name: Adatum\Administrator

Password:

For this available virtual machine beginning

the lab, complete the following steps:

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1. On the host computer, start Hyper-V Manager.

2. In Hyper-V Manager, click 20740C-LON-DC1, and then in the Actions pane,

click Start.

3. In the Actions pane, click Connect. Wait until the virtual machine starts.

4. following credentials:

Administrator

Adatum

5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 for 20740C-LON-SVR1.

Exercise 1: Creating and managing volumes

Scenario

In the by creating a number of volumes hard disks.

The main tasks for this exercise are as follows:

1. Create a hard disk volume and format for ReFS

2.

Detailed Steps

Detailed Steps

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Result: After completing this exercise, you should have successfully created
several volumes.

Exercise 2: Resizing volumes

Scenario

You then realize that you decide to use

Diskpart. process.

The main tasks for this exercise are as follows:

1. Create a simple volume and resize it

2. Shrink a volume

3. exercise

Detailed Steps

Detailed Steps ▼

Detailed Steps ▼

Result: After completing this exercise, you should have successfully resized a
volume.

Exercise virtual hard disks

Scenario

You are required to create and configure virtual hard disks for use in a Windows

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Server 2016 server computer. The virtual hard disk is for the Sales department. You
decide to use Windows PowerShell to achieve these objectives. First, you must
install the Windows PowerShell Hyper-V module.

The main tasks for this exercise are as follows:

1. module

2.

3. hard disk

4. Prepare for the next module

Detailed Steps ▼

Detailed Steps

Detailed Steps

Detailed Steps

Result: After completing this exercise, you should have successfully created and
managed virtual hard disks by using Windows PowerShell.

Review Question(s)

Check

Discovery
In the Diskpart.exe command-line resize volumes.
What PowerShell cmdlets could you

Show solution Reset

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Check Your Knowledge

Discovery
Your current volume runs out of disk space. You have another disk available in the same
server. What actions in the Windows operating system can you perform to help you add
disk

Show solution

Module takeaways

Best Practice: The following list is of recommended best practices:

• If you want to shrink a volume, defragment the volume first so you can
reclaim more space from the volume.

• Use the GPT partition table format for disks larger than 2 TB.

volumes, use ReFS.

FAT32 on Windows Server disks.

Review Question(s)

Check Your Knowledge

Discovery
What Disk Management?

Show solution

Check Knowledge

Discovery

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What are the most important implementations of RAID?

Show solution Reset

Tools
The following table lists the tools that this module references.

Tool Use to

Disk the Tools

Initialize disks
Computer

• Create and modify

volumes

Diskpart.exe Command prompt

• Initialize disks

Create and modify

volumes from a command
prompt

Mklink.
Create a symbolic
file or folder

Chkdsk.exe Command prompt

• Check a disk for an NTFS-
formatted volume

Cannot be used for

or virtual disks

Defrag.
Disk defragmentation
for NTFS-formatted
volumes.

• Cannot be used for ReFS

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Tool Use to Where to find it

or virtual disks

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