Windows Server 2016 enables service providers to deploy Microsoft storage solutions using Storage Spaces Direct with Direct Attached Storage (DAS). Today’s Microsoft storage solutions are dependent on and require storage hardware that is inherently shareable, such as Fibre Channel, or iSCSI SAN, or Storage Spaces with Shared SAS. Storage Spaces with DAS hardware support in Windows Server 2016 enables Microsoft Storage Solutions to use hardware that is not shareable by design.
The Microsoft Storage Solution in Windows Server 2016 is an evolution of the investments in Scale-Out File Server (SOFS), Clustered Shared Volume File System (CSVFS), Storage Spaces and Failover Clustering.
What’s New in the Windows Server Technical Preview http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn765472.aspx
What’s New in Failover Clustering in Windows Server Technical Preview http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn765474.aspx
What do we need to create a Windows Server Storage Spaces Direct ?
Well just a cluster based on windows server Technical preview and some local disks any disks ? no not just any disk it can’t be USB disk but this can be used with the normal storage spaces. as shown here http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2012/10/10/windows-server-2012-storage-spaces-is-it-for-you-could-be.aspx
A basic cluster with a bunch of drives is al you need
In this case I have a two node cluster and 20 disks on node 1 and 9 disk on node 2.
Remember these are local disk and not clustered. We can transfer this in a Storage Space and use it for Hyper-v
But Suppose we could use this for a cluster then our “old” disks would be use full to other functions.
Of course there are some question marks here but let me show you how to build this and this could be helpful.
If I take a look at the disk storage on my first node I see 21 disk
and not that much storage on node 2
So on our two node cluster I can’t add local storage this will not work unless..
Unless we set an extra Cluster Property and then we can use this disk as cluster storage but with a star*
I’ll do this in the GUI in PowerShell it is way to easy ( did you hear that …odd a few years ago it was reversed )
If we take a look at the Cluster Property’s we will see that there is a new option in DASMODE
DASModeEnabled 0
DASModeBusTypes 134144
DASModeOptimizations 1
DASModeIOLatencyThreshold 10000
When setting all the options we can use all the disks in the cluster nodes.
Setting the DASModeEnabled=1 will allocate all the local disk to the Storage Pool.
(Get-Cluster).DASModeEnabled=1
in the enclosures there is a huge list with all the Disks, these disk are all local disks 
Now we are creating Storage Spaces I’ll show you this in the GUI and this way you can see what is changed in the cluster. After this you can do this in PowerShell like in de blogs below
More info can be found here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822937.aspx Deploy Clustered Storage Spaces
Step-by-step for Storage Spaces Tiering in Windows Server 2012 R2
Now that all my disk converted to a SES enclosure and as you can see this is published in the Cluster under the new Enclosure under storage.
Creating a new Storage spaces direct
As you can see I can create Multiple Spaces
You will need at least 3 disk to create a Storage Space.
Selecting the Disks for the Storage Space
Next create a Virtual disk in the just created Storage Space
I have no storage tier so for this demo I choose a simple setup
Now that the disk is created we need to create a volume on the Disk.
As you can see there are several steps needed to create a disk/ volume in a Storage space. This has nothing to do with Storage spaces direct.
when look at the cluster I see now a Disk in the pool that I can use as a Cluster Disk for a Clustered Resource.
In this case I used Only a simple setup but you can create a bigger setup and getting more lops or redundancy
In this case I created a Scale out file server with Storage Spaces Direct. This is demo only!
So these are the basic steps to use , you can use a tiered storage space direct.
If you want more info about this checkout the Techdays NL Agenda
https://www.microsoft.com/netherlands/techdays/spreker.aspx?name=robert-smit&theme=yellow
Or view the Sessions from Ignite on Channel 9
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3474
Happy clustering
Robert Smit
http://robertsmit.wordpress.com
Technorati Tags: Windows,Server,Storage,Spaces,Direct,SOFS,setup
