User: thetrom

Deduplication

On: Ask Slashdot: How Do I De-Dupe a System With 4.2 Million Files?

Check out dedup in Windows Server 2012 - http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2012/05/21/introduction-to-data-deduplication-in-windows-server-2012.aspx

Take a look at W2K12 File Server and SMB 3.0

On: Ask Slashdot: Stepping Down From an Office Server To NAS-Only?

I suggest taking a look at Windows Server 2012 File Server role - W2K12 - deduplication is an in box feature
- SMB Multichannel - better performance uisng 4 TCP channels
- Storage Spaces - SAN like features with no special hardware (this is not dynamic volume)
- Thin provisioning - using Spaces, Windows can create TP LUNs
- NFS 4 server - in box role in W2K12
- Resilient File System (ReFS) - high degree of compatibility with the most common NTFS features, but has resiliency and scalability features that go beyond NTFS
- Windows Server Backup - now supports backup to the cloud (in box feature)
- Support for Hyper-V VMs - now Hyper-V supports running VMs using a file server and SMB 3.0
- Scale-out - with more than one server, File Server can be configured in a scale out mode for better scalability

Sources:
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Overview-File-Server-Role-Windows-Server-8-Failover-Clustering.html
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/windows-server/top-ten-windows-server-2012-storage-enhancements-143157
http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/03/28/microsoft-online-backup-service.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/bettertogether/archive/2012/07/21/windows-server-2012-part2-virtualization-enhancements-scalability-amp-flexibility.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/2012-editions.aspx

Full disclosure: I do work for Microsoft. I am a senior program manager on the Virtual Machine Manager team. I work on Storage Automation using SNIA SMI-S/ My blog is: http://blogs.technet.com/b/hectorl