Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller Driver
Understanding the cache in Storage Spaces Direct • • 9 minutes to read • Contributors • • • • In this article Applies to: Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016 features a built-in server-side cache to maximize storage performance. It is a large, persistent, real-time read and write cache.
The cache is configured automatically when Storage Spaces Direct is enabled. In most cases, no manual management whatsoever is required. How the cache works depends on the types of drives present. The following video goes into details on how caching works for Storage Spaces Direct, as well as other design considerations. Storage Spaces Direct design considerations (20 minutes) Drive types and deployment options Storage Spaces Direct currently works with three types of storage devices: NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) SATA/SAS SSD (Solid-State Drive) HDD (Hard Disk Drive) These can be combined in six ways, which we group into two categories: 'all-flash' and 'hybrid'. All-flash deployment possibilities All-flash deployments aim to maximize storage performance and do not include rotational hard disk drives (HDD). Hybrid deployment possibilities Hybrid deployments aim to balance performance and capacity or to maximize capacity and do include rotational hard disk drives (HDD).
Cache drives are selected automatically In deployments with multiple types of drives, Storage Spaces Direct automatically uses all drives of the 'fastest' type for caching. The remaining drives are used for capacity. Which type is 'fastest' is determined according to the following hierarchy. For example, if you have NVMe and SSDs, the NVMe will cache for the SSDs. If you have SSDs and HDDs, the SSDs will cache for the HDDs.
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) has become extremely popular with customers all over the world since its introduction with the release of Microsoft Windows Server 2016. Divx dolby audio download. This software-defined storage (SDS) technology leverages the concept of collecting a pool of affordable drives to form a. With Windows 10 I just have the Standard SATA AHCI driver installed and the Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller installed in the device.
Tip In all-NVMe or all-SSD deployments, especially at very small scale, having no drives 'spent' on cache can improve storage efficiency meaningfully. Cache behavior is set automatically The behavior of the cache is determined automatically based on the type(s) of drives that are being cached for. When caching for solid-state drives (such as NVMe caching for SSDs), only writes are cached. When caching for hard disk drives (such as SSDs caching for HDDs), both reads and writes are cached.
Write-only caching for all-flash deployments When caching for solid-state drives (NVMe or SSDs), only writes are cached. This reduces wear on the capacity drives because many writes and re-writes can coalesce in the cache and then de-stage only as needed, reducing the cumulative traffic to the capacity drives and extending their lifetime. For this reason, we recommend selecting drives for the cache. The capacity drives may reasonably have lower write endurance. Because reads do not significantly affect the lifespan of flash, and because solid-state drives universally offer low read latency, reads are not cached: they are served directly from the capacity drives (except when the data was written so recently that it has not yet been de-staged).
This allows the cache to be dedicated entirely to writes, maximizing its effectiveness. This results in write characteristics, such as write latency, being dictated by the cache drives, while read characteristics are dictated by the capacity drives. Both are consistent, predictable, and uniform. Read/write caching for hybrid deployments When caching for hard disk drives (HDDs), both reads and writes are cached, to provide flash-like latency (often ~10x better) for both.