WS-011 Windows Server

2019/2022 Administration
Module 04: File servers and
storage management in
Windows Server
Module overview

This module describes how to configure file servers and storage in Windows Server:
 Lessons:
o Volumes and file systems in Windows Server
o Implementing sharing in Windows Server
o Implementing Storage Spaces in Windows Server

o Implementing Data Deduplication

o Implementing iSCSI
o Deploying DFS
Lesson 1: Volumes and file
systems in Windows Server
Lesson 1 overview

This lesson describes file systems and volumes in Windows Server:

 Topics:
o Overview of file systems in Windows Server
o Why use ReFS in Windows Server?
o Overview of disk volumes

o Demonstration: Manage volumes in Windows Server

o Overview of File Server Resource Manager
o Manage permissions on volumes
Overview of file systems in Windows Server

When selecting a file system, consider the differences between FAT, NTFS file system, and ReFS:
 FAT provides:
o Basic file system
o Partition size limitations
o FAT32 to enable larger disks

o exFAT developed for flash drives

 NTFS provides:
o Metadata

o Auditing and journaling

o Security (ACLs and encryption)
 ReFS provides:
o Backward compatibility support for NTFS
o Enhanced data verification and error correction
o Support for larger files, directories, and volumes
Why use ReFS in Windows Server?

ReFS has many advantages over NTFS:

 Metadata integrity with checksums
 Integrity streams with user data integrity
 Allocation on write transactional model
 Large volume, file, and directory sizes (2^78 bytes with
16 KB cluster size)
 Storage pooling and virtualization
 Data striping for performance and redundancy
 Disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors
 Resiliency to corruptions with recovery
 Shared storage pools across machines
Overview of disk volumes

When selecting a type of disk for use in Windows Server, you can choose between:
 Basic disk
 Dynamic disk
Regardless of which type of disk you use, you must configure the following volumes
on one of the server’s hard disks:
 System volumes
 Boot volumes
In Windows Server, if you are using dynamic disks, you can create a number of different types of disk
volumes:
 Simple volumes
 Spanned volumes
 Striped volumes
 Mirrored volumes
 RAID-5 volumes
Demonstration:
Manage volumes in
Windows Server
 Create and format a volume using Windows
PowerShell
 Create a mirrored volume using Server
Manager
Overview of File Server Resource Manager

Use FSRM to manage and classify data that is stored on file servers:
Manage permissions on volumes

Control access on NTFS and ReFS file system:

 Can be added for groups, users, and computers:
o Cumulative for group members
 Can be assigned to:
o Files

o Folders
o Volumes (root folder)
 Permissions:
o Allow
o Deny (takes precedence)
 Basic and advanced
Lesson 2: Implementing
sharing in Windows Server
Lesson 2 overview

This lesson describes SMB and how to implement sharing in Windows Server:
Topics:
 What is SMB?
 Configure SMB shares
 Demonstration: Configure SMB shares by using Server Manager and Windows PowerShell
 Best practices for sharing resources
 Overview of NFS
What is SMB?

 SMB is the file-sharing protocol that Windows client and server operating systems use
 Each new version has additional features
 SMB 3.0 introduced large performance benefits
 SMB 3.0.2 added:
o Scale-Out File Server
o Removable SMB 1.x
 SMB 3.1.1 added:
o Pre-authentication integrity
o SMB encryption improvements
o Cluster dialect fencing
Configure SMB shares

 There are three SMB share profiles:

o Quick
o Advanced
o Applications
 Windows PowerShell cmdlets for SMB share management:
o New-SmbShare
o Set-SmbShare
o Remove-SmbShare

o Get-SmbShare
o Get-SmbSession
o Get-SmbOpenFile
o Set-SmbBandwidthLimit
Demonstration:
Configure SMB
shares by using
Server Manager
and Windows
PowerShell
 Create an SMB share by using Server Manager
 Create an SMB share by using Windows
PowerShell
Best practices for sharing resources

The following best practices for sharing resources are:

 Use RDMA network adapters for best performance
 Use SMB Direct to coordinate the transfer of large amounts of data
 Use SMB Multichannel to enable the use of multiple network adapters
 Use large, resilient physical disks
 Use Offloaded Data Transfer to quickly move data between devices
Overview of NFS

 NFS is a file system based on open standards

 Current version is 4.1
 Windows NFS components include:
o Client for NFS
o Server for NFS
 Support for Kerberos v5 authentication
 Primary uses for NFS:
o Storage for VMware virtual machines
o Sharing data across multiple operating systems
o Sharing data across different IT infrastructures after a company merger
Lesson 3: Implementing
Storage Spaces in Windows
Server
Lesson 3 overview

This lesson describes how to deploy Storage Spaces technology in Windows Server
 Topics:
o What are Storage Spaces?
o Components and features of Storage Spaces
o Storage Spaces usage scenarios

o Provision a storage space

o Demonstration: Configure Storage Spaces
o Overview of Storage Spaces Direct

o Demonstration: Configure Storage Spaces Direct

What are Storage Spaces?

Use Storage Spaces to:

Physical disk
 Add physical disks of any type and size to a storage pool

 Create highly available virtual disks from the pool:

Storage pool
o To create a virtual disk, you need:
• One or more physical disks
• A storage pool that includes the disks Virtual disk
• Virtual disks (or storage spaces)
that are created with disks from the
storage pool
Disk drive
• Disk drives that are based on
virtual drives
Components and features of Storage Spaces

Feature Options

Storage layout Simple

Two-way or three-way mirrors
Parity

Disk sector size 512 or 512e

4 KB

Drive allocation Data-store

Manual
Hot spare

Provisioning schemes Thin provisioning space

Fixed provisioning space

Stripe parameters Number of columns

Interleave
Storage Spaces usage scenarios

Storage Spaces was designed to enable storage administrators to:

 Implement and easily manage scalable, reliable, and inexpensive storage
 Use inexpensive storage with or without external storage
 Combine multiple drives into storage pools that administrators can manage as a single entity
 Implement different types of storage in the same pool
 Grow storage pools as required
 Provision storage as required from existing storage pools
 Designate specific drives as hot spares
Provision a storage space

Feature Options

Disk sector size • 512 or 512e

Drive allocation • Automatic

• Manual
• Hot spare

Provisioning schemes • Thin provisioning

• Fixed provisioning
Demonstration:
Configure Storage
Spaces
 Create a storage pool
 Create a mirrored virtual disk and volume
 Examine disk properties in Windows Admin
Center
Overview of Storage Spaces Direct (1 of 3)
Overview of Storage Spaces Direct (2 of 3)

Disaggregated Storage Spaces Direct scenario:

Overview of Storage Spaces Direct (3 of 3)

Hyper-converged Storage Spaces

Direct scenario Hyper-converged stack

SMB network
Demonstration:
Configure Storage
Spaces Direct
 Install the Windows Server roles and features
for Failover Clustering
 Validate cluster configuration and create a
cluster
 Enable the Storage Spaces Direct feature,
create a storage pool, virtual disk, file server,
and file share
 Test high availability for the storage
Lesson 4: Implementing
Data Deduplication
Lesson 4 overview

This lesson describes how to implement the Data Deduplication feature:

 Topics:
o Data Deduplication components
o Deploy Data Deduplication
o Usage scenarios for Data Deduplication

o Demonstration: Implement Data Deduplication

o Backup and restore considerations with Data Deduplication
Data Deduplication components (1 of 3)

The Data Deduplication role service consists of several components including:

 A filter driver, which monitors local or remote I/O
 The Deduplication service, which controls the four available job types:
o Optimization
o Garbage collection
o Scrubbing
o Unoptimization
Data Deduplication components (2 of 3)

A view of optimized data (80% savings)

Chunk
After deduplication 2 TB physical size
store

Optimized Savings = 8 TB
file stubs
Non-optimized
files

Before deduplication 10 TB
Data Deduplication components (3 of 3)
Server Windows
WMI
The different components of the Data Deduplication infrastructure. Manager PowerShell
Management
File
I/0
Deduplication service
Collect Scrub
Optimize
garbage data
Deduplication jobs

Deduplication filter driver Deduplication Job Access

Regular storage

File Chunk store

NTFS file system
metadata
Deploy Data Deduplication (1 of 2)

Prior to installing and configuring Data Deduplication in your environment, plan your deployment using the
following steps:
1. Determine target deployments
2. Determine which volumes are candidates for deduplication
3. Evaluate savings with the Deduplication Evaluation Tool
4. Plan the rollout, scalability, and deduplication policies
Deploy Data Deduplication (2 of 2)

After completing your planning, deploy Data Deduplication to a server in your environment by performing
the following steps:
1. Install Data Deduplication components on the server
2. Enable Data Deduplication
3. Configure Data Deduplication jobs
4. Configure Data Deduplication schedules
Usage scenarios for Data Deduplication (1 of 2)

Consider using Data Deduplication for the following areas:

File shares VHD libraries

Software
deployment User
shares documents
Usage scenarios for Data Deduplication (2 of 2)

Example deduplication savings on data at rest

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

User home folder

(MyDocs)

General file share

Software
deployment share

VHD library
Demonstration:
Implement Data
Deduplication
 Install the Data Deduplication role service
 Enable Data Deduplication
 Check the status of Data Deduplication
Backup and restore considerations with Data Deduplication

One of the benefits of using Data Deduplication is that backup and

restore operations typically are faster
Lesson 5: Implementing
iSCSI
Lesson 5: Overview

This lesson describes how to implement iSCSI

 Topics:
o What is iSCSI?
o iSCSI components
o Considerations for implementing iSCSI

o iSCSI usage scenarios

o Demonstration: Configure and connect to an iSCSI target
What is iSCSI? (1 of 2)

iSCSI transmits SCSI commands over IP networks Component Description

IP network Network that provides high

performance and redundancy

iSCSI targets Servers that run on the storage

device and enable access to
the disks

iSCSI Software component or host

initiators adapter on the server that
provides access to iSCSI
targets

iSCSI IQN Globally unique identifier that

iSCSI uses to address initiators
and targets on an iSCSI
network
What is iSCSI? (2 of 2)

iSCSI client
that runs the
iSCSI
initiator

protocol
TCP/IP
Storage
array

iSCSI Target Server

iSCSI components (1 of 3)

The iSCSI Target Server:

 Is available as a role service in Windows Server 2019
 Provides the following functionality:
o Network or diskless boot
o Server application storage
o Heterogeneous storage
o Lab environments
 Has the following features:
o Authentication
o Query initiator computer for ID
o Virtual hard disks
o Scalability
o Manageability
iSCSI components (2 of 3)

The iSCSI initiator:

 Runs as a service in the operating system

 Is installed by default on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 and later

 Requires only to be started and configured to connect the computer to the iSCSI target
iSCSI components (3 of 3)

 iSNS provides discovery and zoning of iSCSI targets and initiators

 DCB provides network convergence by running iSCSI traffic without dedicated cabling
Considerations for implementing iSCSI

 The primary factors to consider when planning on using iSCSI are:

o Network speeds and performance
o High availability
o Security
o Vendor information

o Infrastructure staff
o Application teams
 Alternative solutions to iSCSI:
o Fibre Channel
o Fibre Channel over Ethernet
iSCSI usage scenarios

Two technologies for implementing iSCSI for high availability are:

 MCS - In the event of a failure, all outstanding iSCSI commands are reassigned to another connection
automatically
 MPIO - If you have multiple network interface cards in your iSCSI initiator and iSCSI Target Server, you can
use MPIO to provide failover redundancy in the event of network outages
Demonstration:
Configure and connect to
an iSCSI target
 Add an iSCSI Target Server role service
 Create iSCSI virtual disks and an iSCSI target
 Connect to an iSCSI target
 Verify the presence of the iSCSI drive
Lesson 6: Deploying DFS
Lesson 6 overview

This lesson describes how to manage DFS databases

 Topics:
o Overview of DFS
o Deploy DFS
o Implement DFS Replication

o DFS namespaces and replication

o Manage DFS databases
o Overview of Azure Files and storage utilities for the datacenter
Overview of DFS

Three DFS scenarios:

Branch office Hub site or branch office
Sharing files
across branch
offices

Branch office Hub site

Data collection

Branch office Hub site

Data distribution
Deploy DFS

User in 1 2 Server
New York in New York

\\Contoso.com\Marketing
DFS
Replication
\\NYC-SRV-01\ProjectDocs
Folder
Targets
\\LON-SRV-01\ProjectDocs

1 2 Namespace
User in Server
London in London
1. User enters : \\contoso.com\marketing
Client computers contact a namespace server and receive a referral
2. Client computers cache the referral and then contact the first server in the
referral
Implement DFS Replication

 When you implement DFSR, it then:

o Uses remote differential compression
o Uses a staging folder to stage a file before sending or receiving the file
o Detects changes on the volume by monitoring the USN journal
o Uses a vector version exchange protocol

o Recovers from failure

 Configure and manage DFSR by using the cmdlets from the DFSR module for Windows PowerShell
DFS namespaces and replication (1 of 2)

 DFS namespaces can be configured as:

o Domain-based namespaces
o Standalone namespaces

 To configure a namespace for publishing content:

1. Create a namespace
2. Create a folder in the namespace
3. Add folder targets
4. Set the ordering method for targets in referrals
DFS namespaces and replication (2 of 2)

You can optimize DFS by:

 Renaming or moving a folder
 Disabling referrals to a folder
 Specifying referral cache duration
 Configuring namespace polling
 Configuring replication groups
 Creating multiple replicated folders
 Modifying replication topology
Manage DFS databases

When managing a DFS database:

 Use these cmdlets to clone a DFS database:
o Export-DfrsClone
o Import-DfrsClone
 Use these cmdlets to recover a DFS database:
o Get-DfsrPreservedFiles
o Restore-DfsrPreservedFiles
Overview of Azure Files and storage utilities for the datacenter

Azure Files
 Requires configuring connectivity to Azure Files
 Can implement Azure file shares from on-premises servers and vice versa
 Can use Azure File Share snapshots to quickly store on-premises content on Azure
Azure File Sync
 Automatically replicates local file shares to a central Azure storage location
 Allows applications that need local and Azure data to use the same data sets
 Automatically backs up disparate branch office data
 Allows cloud tiering—non-used data moves off premises to Azure
 Uses SSL encryption through well-known port number 443
Storage Replica
 Provides for synchronous and asynchronous replication
 Supports stretch cluster, server-to-server, and cluster-to-cluster scenarios
Instructor-led labs:
Implementing
storage solutions in
Windows Server
 Implementing Data Deduplication
 Configuring iSCSI storage
 Configuring redundant storage spaces
 Implementing Storage Spaces Direct
Module-review questions

1. You attach five 2-TB disks to your Windows Server 2012 computer. You want to simplify the process
of managing the disks. In addition, you want to ensure that if one disk fails, the failed disk’s data isn’t
lost. What feature can you implement to accomplish these goals?
2. Your manager has asked you to consider the use of Data Deduplication within your storage
architecture. In what scenarios is the Data Deduplication role service particularly useful?
3. Can you use both local and shared storage with the Storage Spaces Direct feature?
Module-review answers (1 of 2)
1. You attach five 2-TB disks to your Windows Server 2012 computer. You want to simplify the process of
managing the disks. In addition, you want to ensure that if one disk fails, the failed disk’s data isn’t lost.
What feature can you implement to accomplish these goals?
 You can use the Storage Spaces feature to create a storage pool of all five disks, and then create a
virtual disk with parity or mirroring to make it highly available.
2. Your manager has asked you to consider the use of Data Deduplication within your storage
architecture. In what scenarios is the Data Deduplication role service particularly useful?
 You should consider using deduplication for file shares, software deployment shares, and VHD and
VHDX file libraries. For file shares, include group content publication or sharing, user home folders,
and profile redirection for accessing offline files. With the release to manufacturing (RTM) version of
Windows Server 2012, you could save approximately 30 to 50 percent of your system’s disk space.
With the Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) support in Windows Server 2012 R2, the disk savings can
increase up to 90 percent in certain scenarios. Software deployment shares include software
binaries, images, and updates. You might be able to save approximately 70 to 80 percent of your
disk space. VHD and VHDX file libraries include VHD and VHDX file storage for provisioning to
hypervisors. You might be able to save disk space of approximately 80 to 95 percent.
Module-review answers (2 of 2)
3. Can you use both local and shared storage with the Storage Spaces Direct feature?
 No. Storage Spaces Direct can use only local storage. A standard storage space can use shared
storage.
Thank you.