Windows Storage Server Latest Version

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Frida Kosofsky

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Aug 3, 2024, 3:58:12 PM8/3/24

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System Insights is a predictive analytics feature that locally analyzes Windows Server system data and provides insight into the functioning of the server. It comes with a number of built-in capabilities, but we've added the ability to install additional capabilities via Windows Admin Center, starting with disk anomaly detection.

Disk anomaly detection is a new capability that highlights when disks are behaving differently than usual. While different isn't necessarily a bad thing, seeing these anomalous moments can be helpful when troubleshooting issues on your systems.

Windows Admin Center is a new locally deployed, browser-based app for managing servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure with Storage Spaces Direct, and Windows 10 PCs. It comes at no additional cost beyond Windows and is ready for production use.

Storage Migration Service is a new technology that makes it easier to migrate servers to a newer version of Windows Server. It provides a graphical tool that inventories data on servers, transfers the data and configuration to newer servers, and then optionally moves the identities of the old servers to the new servers so that apps and users don't have to change anything. For more info, see Storage Migration Service.

Store up to ten times more data on the same volume with deduplication and compression for the ReFS filesystem. (It's just one click to turn on with Windows Admin Center.) The variable-size chunk store with optional compression maximizes savings rates, while the multi-threaded post-processing architecture keeps performance impact minimal. Supports volumes up to 64 TB and will deduplicate the first 4 TB of each file.

Survive two hardware failures at once with an all-new software resiliency option inspired by RAID 5+1. With nested resiliency, a two-node Storage Spaces Direct cluster can provide continuously accessible storage for apps and virtual machines even if one server node goes down and a drive fails in the other server node.

Use a low-cost USB flash drive plugged into your router to act as a witness in two-server clusters. If a server goes down and then back up, the USB drive cluster knows which server has the most up-to-date data. For more info, see the Storage at Microsoft blog and documentation on how to deploy a file share witness.

Manage and monitor Storage Spaces Direct with the new purpose-built Dashboard and experience in Windows Admin Center. Create, open, expand, or delete volumes with just a few clicks. Monitor performance like IOPS and IO latency from the overall cluster down to the individual SSD or HDD. Available at no additional cost for Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019.

With mirror-accelerated parity you can create Storage Spaces Direct volumes that are part mirror and part parity, like mixing RAID-1 and RAID-5/6 to get the best of both. (It's easier than you think in Windows Admin Center.) In Windows Server 2019, the performance of mirror-accelerated parity is more than doubled relative to Windows Server 2016 thanks to optimizations.

This enables admins to manually delimit the allocation of volumes in Storage Spaces Direct. Doing so can significantly increase fault tolerance under certain conditions, but imposes some added management considerations and complexity. For more info, see Delimit the allocation of volumes.

We also made improvements to how the Storage Replica log tracks replication, improving replication throughput and latency, especially on all-flash storage as well as Storage Spaces Direct clusters that replicate between each other.

Support for graphical management of replication is now available in Windows Admin Center via the Server Manager tool. This includes server-to-server replication, cluster-to-cluster, as well as stretch cluster replication.

SMB1 and guest authentication removal: Windows Server no longer installs the SMB1 client and server by default. Additionally, the ability to authenticate as a guest in SMB2 and later is off by default. For more information, review SMBv1 is not installed by default in Windows 10, version 1709 and Windows Server, version 1709.

SMB2/SMB3 security and compatibility: Additional options for security and application compatibility were added, including the ability to disable oplocks in SMB2+ for legacy applications, as well as require signing or encryption on per-connection basis from a client. For more information, review the SMBShare PowerShell module help.

Windows Server 2019 includes the ability to prevent the File Server Resource Manager service from creating a change journal (also known as a USN journal) on all volumes when the service starts. This can conserve space on each volume, but will disable real-time file classification. For more information, see File Server Resource Manager overview.

Windows Server, version 1803 includes the ability to prevent the File Server Resource Manager service from creating a change journal (also known as a USN journal) on all volumes when the service starts. This can conserve space on each volume, but will disable real-time file classification. For more information, see File Server Resource Manager overview.

Windows Server, version 1709 is the first Windows Server release in the Semi-Annual Channel. The Semi-Annual Channel is a Software Assurance benefit and is fully supported in production for 18 months, with a new version every six months.

SMB1 and guest authentication removal: Windows Server, version 1709 no longer installs the SMB1 client and server by default. Additionally, the ability to authenticate as a guest in SMB2 and later is off by default. For more information, review SMBv1 is not installed by default in Windows 10, version 1709 and Windows Server, version 1709.

Storage Spaces Direct enables building highly available and scalable storage using servers with local storage. It simplifies the deployment and management of software-defined storage systems and unlocks use of new classes of disk devices, such as SATA SSD and NVMe disk devices, that were previously not possible with clustered Storage Spaces with shared disks.

What value does this change add?Storage Spaces Direct enables service providers and enterprises to use industry standard servers with local storage to build highly available and scalable software defined storage. Using servers with local storage decreases complexity, increases scalability, and enables use of storage devices that were not previously possible, such as SATA solid state disks to lower cost of flash storage, or NVMe solid state disks for better performance.

Storage Spaces Direct removes the need for a shared SAS fabric, simplifying deployment and configuration. Instead it uses the network as a storage fabric, leveraging SMB3 and SMB Direct (RDMA) for high-speed, low-latency CPU efficient storage. To scale out, simply add more servers to increase storage capacity and I/O performanceFor more information, see the Storage Spaces Direct.

Storage Replica enables storage-agnostic, block-level, synchronous replication between servers or clusters for disaster recovery, as well as stretching of a failover cluster between sites. Synchronous replication enables mirroring of data in physical sites with crash-consistent volumes to ensure zero data loss at the file-system level. Asynchronous replication allows site extension beyond metropolitan ranges with the possibility of data loss.

What value does this change add?You can now create storage QoS policies on a CSV cluster and assign them to one or more virtual disks on Hyper-V virtual machines. Storage performance is automatically readjusted to meet policies as the workloads and storage loads fluctuate.

What works differently?This capability is new in Windows Server 2016. Managing minimum reserves, monitoring flows of all virtual disks across the cluster via a single command, and centralized policy based management were not possible in previous releases of Windows Server.

In Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 client connections to the Active Directory Domain Services default SYSVOL and NETLOGON shares on domain controllers now require SMB signing and mutual authentication (such as Kerberos).

What value does this change add?
For Windows Server 2012 R2, when file changes are synced to the Work Folders server, clients are not notified of the change and wait up to 10 minutes to get the update. When using Windows Server 2016, the Work Folders server immediately notifies Windows 10 clients and the file changes are synced immediately.

Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a group of server operating systems (OS) that has been developed by Microsoft since 1993. The first OS that was released for this platform is Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server, an edition of Windows NT 3.1. With the release of Windows Server 2003, Microsoft started releasing new versions under the name Windows Server. The latest release of Windows Server is Windows Server 2022, which was released in 2021.

Microsoft's history of developing operating systems for servers goes back to Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server. Windows 2000 Server is the first OS to include Active Directory, DNS Server, DHCP Server, and Group Policy.

Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server was released on July 27, 1993[citation needed] as an edition of Windows NT 3.1, an operating system aimed towards business and server use. As with its Workstation counterpart, Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server was a 32 bit rewrite of the Windows kernel that retained a similar use interface to Windows 3.1. Unlike the latter, however, Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server was a complete operating system that did not need to be run from DOS. Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server, like its Workstation counterpart, featured new features such as multiuser support and preemptive multitasking.[3]In 1994, Microsoft released Windows NT Server 3.5. It introduced TCP/IP and Winsock support integrated into the operating system, alongside the ability to use FTP. It also supported VFAT.[citation needed]