Software RAID configuration - Windows Server 2012
Storage Virtualization -- Disk virtualization is working like a software RAID with better scalability, resiliency and optimization.
The basic concept is to group physical disks together into a container called storage pools and to manage those disks as a single storage space.
The Raid Levels of a virtual disk can be:
Simple: This is a stripe set with no parity, similar to RAID 0. There is no redundancy. It has a better performance and more capacity available compared to a configuration with a single disk.
Mirror: This is a mirror set, similar to RAID 1. Data is duplicated across two or three disks, increasing reliability but decreasing the total size in half. This configuration protects data from a single drive failure or from two simultaneous drive failures in the case of a five disk configuration.
Parity: This is a striped set with distributed parity, similar to RAID 5. This configuration protects data from a single disk failure. It requires a minimum of three disks to operate.
To Create a Storage Pool
Within the Server Manager under File and Storage Services > Volumes > Storage Pools.
Click on the drop down text box ‘Tasks’ then click ‘New Storage Pool’
Create a storage pool name and click the ‘Next’ button.
Select the disks you want to add to the storage pool, configure the allocation, and click the ‘Next’ button, then ‘Create’.
To create a Virtual Disk
Select the Storage Pool and on the Virtual Disks Tasks select New Virtual Disk.
Select the Storage Pool and click the ‘Next’ button.
Give it a name and click on the ‘Next’ button.
Select the Layout option you want and click on the ‘Next’ button.
Select the Provision Type and click on the ‘Next’ button.
Select the Size and click on the ‘Next’ button.
Finally, click the ‘Create’ button.
Lastly, you will need to create a volume
Make sure to check the option ‘Create a volume when this wizard closes’ and click ‘Close’.
To Create a Volume
Select the new Virtual Disk and click the ‘Next’ button.
Set the Volume Size and click on the ‘Next’ button.
Specify a Drive letter or assign it to a folder, then click on the ‘Next’ button.
Set the file system settings and click on the ‘Next’ button.
Click on the ‘Create’ button to finish.
To view disks by using Powershell
List the available physical disks along with their status and their ability to participate in storage pools.
The Get-Disk cmdlet will return information about any disk attached to the current operating system
We can use Get-PhysicalDisk to get information about disks the operating system sees as physical disks
Lastly Get-VirtualDisk to see information about virtual disks created from storage pools