Storage Technology Quiz

Storing Data in Windows Server 2019

• Windows Server 2019 data storage includes various technologies: storage technologies, RAID, disk types.
• Enabling deduplication is an exercise covered in the course.
• Storage space is crucial for servers, along with processing power and network connections.
• IDE, SAS, SCSI, DAS, NAS, SAN, and RAID are storage options.

Different Storage Types

• Optical discs offer large capacity and accepted read-write speeds, but remain backup media.
• Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) offer high capacity and read-write speeds and currently maintain a leading position in secondary storage.
• Solid State Drives (SSDs) have increasing capacity and high read-write speeds, becoming a popular storage technology.

ATA, PATA, SATA, and SCSI Interfaces

• ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), PATA (Parallel ATA), SATA (Serial ATA), and SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) are interfaces connecting storage and peripherals to computers.
• ATA, known as IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics), is a legacy interface that connects HDDs, optical drives, floppy drives, and related storage technologies.
• PATA uses a 40-pin connector and Molex power connection.
• SATA uses a 7-pin data and 15-pin power connector.
• SCSI is an interface connecting storage and peripherals to computers and includes SPI and SAS.
• SPI is an older version of SCSI.
• SAS is a newer version of SCSI with high data transfer rates, often used in servers.
• PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) and PCIe (PCI Express) are expansion bus standards that enhance computer capabilities.
• PCIe has four types of connectors (x1, x4, x8, and x16) for transmitting data in full duplex.

Understanding Local Storage

• Local storage refers to hard drives or SSDs directly attached to the server.

Direct-Attached Storage (DAS)

• DAS is a group of disks directly connected to computers or servers.
• Internal and external storage devices connected through the aforementioned interfaces are considered DAS.

Understanding Network Storage

• Network storage refers to storage devices connected to a computer network, providing data access to users.

Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

• NAS is a network appliance connecting to computers and servers through a switch, acting as dedicated storage.
• Manufacturers build NAS devices as file servers.
• NAS enables organizations to rely completely on it for file-sharing services, avoiding the need for separate servers.

Storage Area Network (SAN)

• SAN is a storage technology, a standalone infrastructure, enabling different computers to use the same storage.
• SAN connects storage devices in an area network, unlike LANs which connect individual computers.
• SAN uses proprietary protocols like SNMP for management.
• Ethernet or FC (Fibre Channel) are often used to connect SAN to servers.

Differentiating Between Block-Level and File-Level Storage

• File-level storage: data stored and accessed as files/folders, used by NAS.
• Block-level storage: data stored in blocks representing volumes managed by the OS, used by SAN.

Understanding Adapter and Controller Types

• Disk controllers are electronic circuits residing on hard disks.
• They handle operations like spinning disks, moving heads, and data transfer to/from RAM.
• Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) are electronic boards integrated or attached to server motherboards, connecting the storage system to the server.

Understanding Serial Bus Technologies

• Data transmission uses parallel and serial communication.
• Parallel transmissions transmit multiple bits simultaneously (e.g., 8 bits at once).
• Serial transmissions transmit one bit at a time.
• Serial transmission (transmit one bit at a time) is more pragmatic than parallel transmission by reducing the signal skewing, overhead, and crosstalk.
• SATA, SAS, FC, and USB use serial buses.

Understanding Storage Protocols

• Storage protocols enable data storage and retrieval on storage systems.
• SCSI is heavily used in block-level storage systems.
• iSCSI places SCSI protocols in IP packets, extending to network functionalities.
• Fibre Channel (FC) extends the functionalities of the standard SCSI protocol across networks.
• FCoE combines the functions of Fibre Channel and Ethernet protocols.

Understanding File Sharing Protocols

• File sharing protocols allow data sharing over LANs, WANs, and the internet.
• Common protocols include SMB (Common Internet File System - often used with Windows), NFS (often used with Unix and Linux), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and SSH (Secure Shell).

Understanding FC, HBA, and FC Switches

• HBA is an interface standard while the FC switch is a network switch
• These components both support high-speed FC networking technology to create FC fabrics.
• FC fabrics consist of one or more FC switches, and thus are SAN topology.

What is iSCSI Hardware?

• iSCSI is a block-level storage method using TCP/IP networks to send SCSI commands.
• Clients (initiators) use IP protocol to send SCSI commands (CDBs) to targets (storage devices).
• Logical unit number (LUN) represents a logical drive in SANs.
• TCP port 860 is reserved for the iSCSI system port, while TCP port 3260 represents iSCSI's default port.

What is S2D?

• S2D (Software-Defined Storage) is a Windows Server 2019 feature enabling disk grouping into storage pools to create software-defined storage or storage spaces.

What is Deduplication?

• Deduplication (dedup) is a technique eliminating duplicated data, storing only single copies, thus saving storage space.

What is Storage Tiering?

• Storage tiering is a built-in feature in Microsoft Windows Server placing frequently accessed files in faster storage (like SSDs) to reduce storage costs, and rarely accessed files in slower storage (like HDDs).

Managing Storage with Server Manager and Windows PowerShell

• Using Server Manager and PowerShell provides storage management capabilities on servers.
• Ensure the File and Storage Services role is added before managing storage.

Understanding RAID

• RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) combines multiple physical disks into a single logical unit for fault tolerance.

Types of RAID

• RAID 0: Stripe disk data for speed but lacks fault tolerance.
• RAID 1: Mirrors data for fault tolerance but has lower storage efficiency.
• RAID 5: Combines striping with parity; extremely resilient but requires a minimum of three disks.
• RAID 10: Combines RAID 1 and RAID 0 for both mirroring and striping.

Hardware vs. Software RAID

• Hardware RAID uses a dedicated circuit board, more expensive and configured before the OS installation.
• Software RAID is an OS application for lower cost and configured after OS installation.

Understanding SDS (Software-Defined Storage)

• SDS helps organizations manage storage without expensive NAS or SAN hardware.
• SDS uses the built-in S2D feature in Windows Server 2019 to create virtualized storage networks and separate storage management from hardware.

Understanding Resiliency Using S2D

• S2D redundancy is called resiliency, mirroring with parity, using a fault tolerance method similar to RAID.
• Windows Server 2019 S2D offers fault tolerance and storage efficiency.

Understanding High Availability (HA)

• High Availability (HA) is system availability characterized by never failing.
• HA standard typically aims for 99.9999% availability, requiring fault tolerance, backup, resilience, and reliability for all storage media.

Understanding Disk Types

• Different disk types (HDD, SSD, Optical) have varying storage capacities, speeds, and features, impacting technical specifications and storage potentials.

Understanding HDDs

• HDDs are secondary storage using electromotors to spin disks.
• Data is stored on platters with tracks and sectors, read/write heads above platters.
• HDD capacity is measured in bytes (GB, TB) and speed in RPM (rotations per minute).

Understanding SSDs

• SSDs are secondary storage, memory chips without moving parts
• They are more reliable, faster, and use less power than HDDs.
• SSDs store data electronically.

Understanding Optical Disk Drives (ODDs)

• ODDs use lasers to read/write data to CDs and DVDs.
• Optical discs (CDs/DVDs) have data stored in concentric tracks.
• Optical disk speed is measured in KB/s (kilobytes per second).

Understanding Optical Disc Types

• CD-ROM: Read-only.
• CD-R: Write-once.
• CD-RW: Rewritable.
• DVD types have similar variations.
• Blu-ray discs offer high capacity, superseding DVD capabilities.

Understanding Basic Disks

• Basic disks are organized into partitions using MBR or GPT schemes.
• Partitions cannot be extended across multiple physical disks in a basic disk, but rather on the same disk.

Understanding Dynamic Disks

• Dynamic disks allow for increased read-write performance through volume configuration.
• Dynamic disks can be extended through multiple disks, creating volumes (simple, mirrored, striped, spanned, and RAID-5).

Understanding Mount Points

• Mounting an unallocated partition to a blank folder creates a mount point.
• This allows increasing the size of the folder if the original partition runs out of space.

Understanding File Systems

• FAT, NTFS, ReFS (Resilient File System), and exFAT are some well-known file systems used in Windows.
• FAT is an older file system typically used on older versions of Windows.
• NTFS is the standard for Windows and provides features like disk quotas and volume shadow copies for storage efficiency and better performance.
• ReFS is a newer file system that is better for performance and security.
• exFAT is a file system that is designed to work well with external devices, such as USB drives and memory cards.

Understanding Dynamic Disks (Conversion)

• Steps on converting a basic disk into a dynamic disk in Windows Server 2019.
• Disk Management utility used for the conversion.

Understanding Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Mounting

• Mounted VHD is a mapping to an empty folder using NTFS file systems.
• Mounted VHDs are like other external drives but use drive paths.
• Disk Management utility to attach VHDs in Windows Server 2019.

Understanding Distributed File System (DFS)

• DFS allows sharing data from multiple servers in a controlled way.
• Data from shared folders on different servers is grouped into logically structured namespaces, making access look like a local file structure.

Enabling Deduplication on Windows Server 2019

• Consult the textbook for detailed steps on enabling deduplication on Windows Server 2019 (pages 288-290).

Test your knowledge on the various aspects of storage technology, including types of storage solutions, interfaces, and RAID configurations. This quiz covers current popular technologies, advantages, and specific definitions related to data storage. Perfect for students and professionals looking to deepen their understanding of computer storage.