Storage Spaces: An interesting new feature of Windows 8

Storage Spaces is one of the most interesting (at least regarding the management of disks) feature of Windows 8. Withdrawn from the market a range of Windows Home Server Drive Extender and removed, Storage Spaces is the only tool capable of handling the file system to organize the data into virtual disks, since the existing hard disk. In practice, Storage Spaces allows you to add the capabilities of each drive to get a single large space for storing mass which is similar to RAID configurations.

Windows 8

Windows 8

Unlike RAID, Storage Spaces does not require the use of identical hard disks and mounted on the same controller: the discs can be of different types and capacities or optionally connected via USB. The important thing is that they have the same file system – NTFS, specifically for Windows 8. Windows Server 2012 refs would also support a new file system from Microsoft, which, however, can not be formatted for removable media. People using UNIX-like operating systems have already thought of a device mapping.

Windows 8 Storage Spaces interface

Windows 8 Storage Spaces interface

In fact, Storage Spaces is an equivalent for Windows 8 the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) for Linux that can be implemented by BSD and Solaris: Microsoft’s solution provides thin provisioning, which is a virtual extension of the physical space available under the use of user quotas – introduced in the Device Mapper (DM) from Linux 3.2. Storage Spaces does not require great technical skills to be configured and offers a reasonable balance between advanced features and ease of use.