William Stanek - Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage, Security, & Networking Pocket Consultant

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■Managing the File And Storage Services role

■Adding hard drives

■Working with basic, dynamic, and virtual disks

■Using basic disks and partitions

■Compressing drives and data

■Encrypting drives and data

A hard drive is the most common storage device used on network workstations and servers. Users depend on hard drives to store their word-processing documents, spreadsheets, and other types of data. Drives are organized into file systems that users can access either locally or remotely.

Local file systems are installed on a user’s computer and can be accessed without remote network connections. The C drive, which is available on most workstations and servers, is an example of a local file system. You access the C drive by using the file path C: \.

On the other hand, you access remote file systems through a network connection to a remote resource. You can connect to a remote file system by using the Map Network Drive feature of File Explorer.

Wherever disk resources are located, your job as a system administrator is to manage them. The tools and techniques you use to manage file systems and drives are discussed in this chapter. Chapter 2, “Configuring storage,” looks at partition management, volume sets, and fault tolerance.

A file server provides a central location for storing and sharing files across the network. When many users require access to the same files and application data, you should configure file servers in the domain. Although all servers are configured with basic file services, you must configure the File And Storage Services role and add any additional role services that might be needed.

Table 1–1 provides an overview of the role services associated with the File And Storage Services role. When you add any needed role services to a file server, you might also want to install the following optional features, available through the Add Roles And Features Wizard:

■ Windows Server BackupThe standard backup utility included with Windows Server 2012 R2.

■ Enhanced StorageSupports additional functions made available by devices that support hardware encryption and enhanced storage. Enhanced storage devices support Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard 1667 to provide enhanced security, which can include authentication at the hardware level of the storage device.

■ Multipath I/OProvides support for using multiple data paths between a file server and a storage device. Servers use multiple I/O paths for redundancy in case of the failure of a path and to improve transfer performance.

Binaries needed to install roles and features are referred to as payloads . With Windows Server 2012 R2, payloads are stored in subfolders of the %SystemDrive%\Windows\WinSXS folder. If the binaries for the tools have been removed, you might need to install the tools by specifying a source.

TABLE 1–1Role services for file servers

IMPORTANT If payloads have been removed and you don’t specify a source, payloads are restored via Windows Update by default. however, Group Policy can be used to control whether Windows Update is used to restore payloads and to provide alternate source paths for restoring payloads. The policy with which you want to work is Specify Settings For Optional Component Installation And Component Repair, which is under Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System. This policy also is used for obtaining payloads needed to repair components.