MS reveals Windows 8 storage pooling system

PC Pro says.

According to Microsoft, Storage Spaces provides a more flexible architecture that can be used to manage content across numerous different disks and formats, with redundancy and other features built in.

Building on the recently shelved Windows Home Server Drive Extender, Microsoft says Storage Spaces should “dramatically improve how you manage large volumes of storage at home (and work)”.

Details of these virtual disks - the Storage Spaces - were described in a 4 400-word deep-dive blog post last Thursday, introduced by Microsoft Windows Division head, Steven Sinofsky, and written by a member of Redmond's Storage and File System team, Rajeev Nagar, The Register states.

Storage Spaces is being added to the coming Windows 8 Beta and can be tried out in the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

The basic idea is to provide automated data protection and resiliency against physical drive failures, and a storage volume that is actually larger than individual physical drives.

“With thin provisioning, you can augment physical capacity within the pool on an as-needed basis,” The Inquirer quotes Microsoft as saying.

“As you copy more files and approach the limit of available physical capacity within the pool, Storage Spaces will pop up a notification telling you that you need to add more capacity.”