Tip of the Day: Native 4k Drive Support

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Today’s tip…

 

Windows Server 2012 have improved compatibility with native 4KB drives.  Here’s a quick list of 4k items that have been added or included:

  • Ability to install Windows to and boot from a 4K sector disk without emulation (4K Native Disk) on a supported system
  • New VHDx file format designed out of the box to both natively support running on both types of 4K disks and to expose to the Hyper-V guest a data volume which is reported as either type (the default reporting is 512e)
  • Hyper-V guests can boot off a VHDx file reported as a 512e-type disk
  • Support with Windows Server backup, with the 4K disk both as a source and as a target
  • Support with Data De-Dupe (optimization) service
  • Support with NT file system (NTFS)
  • Support with Storage Spaces virtualized storage

One area that that was missing was 4k sector support for the inbox iSCSI software target.  The good news is that this functionality was added to the product in Windows Server 2012 R2.