I’ve just posted two new modules for Windows PowerShell that I wrote which are designed to help with the management and diagnosis of Storage Spaces.

These modules are;

StorageSpaces
This module automates deployment of Storage Spaces and provides intent-based management.  For example, instead of using many different cmdlets from the Storage module to create a Storage Space, Initialize it, partition it, and format it, all of these tasks are performed via a single cmdlet in Windows PowerShell.

Additionally these cmdlets will work in conjunction with a Failover Cluster using shared SAS storage with Storage Spaces to create a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) in a single step as well.

Read more and download the module here;
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Storage-Spaces-module-for-4be70a0c

Storage Spaces Performance Diagnostic
This module can be used to diagnose issues where one or more disks in a Storage Pool are performing abnormally, which are resulting in a Storage Space performing slowly.

Read more, and download this module here;
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Storage-Spaces-Performance-9366b756

Thanks, and I hope you find value in using these add-on modules for Windows PowerShell.

Also, I wish to take a moment to apologize to my Wife for the time I’ve spent over the last 2 years or so learning Windows PowerShell and writing these modules, as well as to thank her for not killing me during the process

Thanks also to Wentao Deng for his assistance with the PowerShell remote calls for Failover Clustering management, as well as his assistance with testing and bug fixes during the course of this project.

Sincerely,

Bruce Langworthy

Historically, this could have been achieved via Diskpart.exe, as long as I knew the correct disk number, as it was not easy to script this operation with DiskPart.

My scenario for this post is the following;

I have 2 USB disks connected to my machine, and I want to erase only one of these, make it bootable, and copy the Consumer Preview image to this disk for fast deployment on several machines.

Prior method using DiskPart.exe

First, I would need to do some research using Diskpart.exe or DiskMgmt and would need to figure out which of the disks I have was the one that mapped to my USB disk..

Using the Select Disk X, Detail disk commands in Diskpart against every disk, I could eventually determine which of the disks I have connected is the USB disk, which would have allowed me to prepare the disk.

The issue here is this is not really scriptable via DiskPart without building scripts to parse the output of DiskPart to find the correct disk.

Followed by all of the appropriate commands to prepare this disk from diskpart.

This method is painful, and I don’t like painful

Using Windows PowerShell to achieve this scenario using Windows 8: 

Warning: The Clear-Disk command does erase the disk(s) specified. Running these commands with multiple USB disks connected would erase all of the USB disks unless the results are filtered further.

List all of the Disks that are connected

Get-Disk

Since I wanted to specifically use a specific USB disk for this process, I need to list only the USB-connected disks:

List all the disks that are connected via USB    

Get-Disk | where-object BusType -eq "USB"

Since I have 2 USB disks connected (as seen above), and I only want clear and prepare the first one, I would need to either filter the list above further, or to specify the exact disk to manage, using one of the following approaches:

Get-Disk 7

or

Get-Disk | where-object Bustype –eq “USB” | where-object FriendlyName –like Kingston*

Now that I know how to query for the disk I wanted to erase and prepare, how would I go about scripting this?

$Disk = Get-Disk | where-object Bustype –eq “USB” | where-object FriendlyName –like Kingston*

$Disk | Clear-Disk –RemoveData –Passthru `
      | Initialize-Disk -PartitionStyle MBR –Passthru `
      | New-Partition -IsActive -UseMaximumSize -DriveLetter U `
      | Format-Volume -NewFileSystemLabel "Bootable USB" -FileSystem NTFS

$ISOPath = "C:\Windows8-ConsumerPreview\Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso"

Mount-DiskImage $IsoPath

Get-DiskImage $IsoPath | Get-Volume

By going a little further with this example, I could even automate the process of copying the installation files to the new disk, by using the following method to get the source and destination paths for use with Robocopy

$SourcePath  = ((Get-Volume `
             | where-object Filesystem -eq "UDF").DriveLetter + ':\')      

$DestinationPath = (($Disk `
                 | Get-Partition).DriveLetter  +':\')  

robocopy $SourcePath $DestinationPath /s

 

Thanks,

 

Bruce Langworthy
Senior Program Manager – Windows Storage and FileSystems

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/san/archive/2011/08/11/have-you-ever-wanted-to-know-if-your-disk-is-going-to-fail-before-it-does.aspx

For Windows 8, we took this a step further with the addition of the Get-StorageReliabilityCounter cmdlet in the Storage module for Windows PowerShell. 

This information can be obtained by passing either a Disk or a PhysicalDisk object (when using Storage Spaces) to this cmdlet. For example,

Get-Disk 0 | Get-StorageReliabilityCounter

or

Get-PhysicalDisk –FriendlyName PhysicalDisk1 | Get-StorageReliabilityCounter

By reviewing this information is possible to make several types of determinations, such as:

• What is the temperature of my Disk?
• Is my disk hotter than the manufacturer recommended maximum?      

• Has my disk experienced any sort of read or write failures?    

• Is my SSD disk approaching the end of its use (Via the Wear property).

• Has this disk experienced any long delays in reading or writing data

It is important to note that some values are only of interest when compared with drives of the same model, and I wanted to give a couple of concrete examples for how to use these counters effectively:

In several cases during the release preview, this information was critical in diagnosing issues with disks in a Storage Spaces pool performing abnormally.  These counters were used to easily identify drives which were experiencing long delays in read or write performance, which negatively impacted the performance of a Storage Space.

One note of caution: The display of this information is based the disk device correctly reporting these counters. Not all disks report these types of statistics. So the values reported per-disk may vary.

Example 1: Reliability Counter Information reported by a SAS disk which is part of a Storage Spaces pool.

Example 2: Reliability Counter Information reported by a USB disk

More Information:

Information provided by the Get-StorageReliabilityCounter cmdlet is obtained via log pages which are defined in the specification, SCSI Primary Commands 4 (SPC-4).  For devices that report this information, the counter information is displayed using this cmdlet.

Information for Drive Manufacturers:

For more information about the Windows logo requirements for providing this information, please refer to the following article on MSDN:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/jj134356.aspx

In the section titled Device.Storage.Hd.Scsi.ReliabilityCounters

Thanks,

Bruce

Here is a quick refresher on ISO and VHD files.

An ISO file is a file container that contains all information needed to put the contents on a CD or DVD or Blu-Ray. ISO Mounting Windows8 Blog post explains the format well and we encourage you to read it for more information.

A Virtual Hard-Disk is a representation of a disk in a file which is treated as a physical disk by the Windows. Since it is a file, it can be moved around and provides portability unmatched by physical disks.  For more in-depth information on VHD format, we encourage you to read the VHD File Format Specification.

Note: A Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is a different concept than a Virtual Disk as exposed by the Storage PowerShell module.  For more information on Virtual Disks, see the blog post:   An Introduction to Storage Management in Windows Server 2012

In this blog post, we look at some common scenarios and PowerShell Cmdlets for ISO/VHD mounting.

Sharing Content on ISO / VHD File with Others

Whether at home or at office, all of us have faced the need to access the contents of an ISO/VHD file. We want to share contents with others quickly and in an easily accessible manner. Windows 8 makes it easy.

To view the contents of an ISO file, you can mount an ISO/VHD by selecting “Mount” option in Explorer Ribbon, double click on the file or right click to select mount option. Windows Explorer will show you the contents immediately. Example shown here uses ISO image of Windows 8.

This post will not discuss mount and eject operations in details. ISO Mounting Windows 8 Blog post covers basic operations in great depth.

Installing software application using ISO Mounting

When software is distributed in form of ISOs, the ISO contents has to be accessible in order to install the software. With ISO Mounting, you don’t have to burn the ISO to an optical disc or use third party software. However, there are cases where installing software after mounting the ISO file may not be very straight forward. We discuss two scenarios in this post.

Determining which executable to run in order to install a software application

When an optical disc containing software installation is inserted, if the software company has specified what executable to run, Windows will run it automatically for you. This behavior is commonly known as Autorun. Autorun is configurable but we will not discuss it in detail in this blog post. When the ISO is mounted, Windows creates a Virtual CD-ROM for you. To protect against malicious software, Windows blocks autorun on this Virtual CD-ROM.  In order to figure out which executable to run, refer to the autorun.inf file located on the Virtual CD-ROM.

In the following example that uses “Windows 8” ISO image, autorun.inf tells the executable that should be run in order to install Windows 8. If the Virtual CD-ROM was assigned the drive letter d:, then setup.exe in the autorun.inf file would refer to d:\setup.exe.

Install a software application that requires multiple ISO files for installation

Some software applications require multiple discs for installation. When you put a disc in the optical drive and run the setup to install the software, the setup knows from where the setup is being run from and the associated drive letter. For example, if the optical drive has the drive letter d: associated with it, the setup knows that the setup files reside on d: drive. When the setup asks to take disc one out and put disc two in, setup may rely on the drive letter to know where to read the contents of disc two from.

In case of ISO Mounting, once disc one is ejected and the setup asks for disk two, ISO Mounting does not guarantee that the disc two will get the same drive letter upon mounting. The following example walks-through how to change the drive letter of a Virtual CD-ROM in order to complete the installation successfully.

Open Disk Management by typing “Disk Management” in Start Screen and switch to Settings.

 Disk Management UI will show the drive letter associated with the Virtual CD-ROM.

 Right click on E: and select the option to “Change Drive Letters and Paths…”.

Select “Change” on the pop-up window to choose the desired drive letter. Windows 8 will now use the new drive letter for the Virtual CD-ROM.

ISO Mounting and Windows 8 Server

ISO mounting is not available on a default installation of Window 8 Server. It is an optional feature that must be enabled in order to mount ISO/VHD files from Windows Explorer. Launch Server Manager by typing “Server Manager” in the Start Screen.

 In Server Manager, click on Manage and select “Add Roles and Features”.

Navigate to Features and select “Desktop Experience”.

Alternatively, PowerShell also may be used to install Desktop-Experience package. The picture below demonstrates how to use PowerShell to install Desktop-Experience package.

The machine has to be rebooted before the changes would take effect.

Note that on Windows 8 server, VHD and ISO files can be mounted only by an administrator. This allows admins to control content available to server users.

ISO Mounting and PowerShell

With Windows 8 Developer Preview we introduced you to native support for ISO/VHD Mounting. You gave us feedback, and we are delighted to know that you are excited about the feature. One of features requested by you was to provide scripting support for ISO/VHD Mounting and we have added PowerShell support to mount and eject ISO Files. We hope you enjoy the improvements.

There are three Cmdlets for ISO mounting. Mount-DiskImage, Get-DiskImage and Dismount-DiskImage.

Mount-DiskImage mounts a valid ISO/VHD file and requires full path of the file.

Mount-DiskImage C:\Users\WinVMAdmin\Downloads\Windows8-ConsumerPreview-32bit-English.iso

The Get-DiskImage cmdlet returns information about one or more disk images (ISO or VHD). This cmdlet could also be used to determine if the specified ISO or VHD file is mounted or not.

Get-DiskImage C:\Users\WinVMAdmin\Downloads\Windows8-ConsumerPreview-32bit-English.iso | Get-Volume

DisMount-DiskImage cmdlet can be used to eject an already mounted ISO/VHD file.

DisMount-DiskImage C:\Users\WinVMAdmin\Downloads\Windows8-ConsumerPreview-32bit-English.iso

The following picture demonstrates the above Cmdlets

Getting the drive letter of a mounted VHD requires the use of few other Cmdlets. Just like a physical storage disk could have multiple partitions, a VHD can contain multiple partitions.  In order to get the drive letter(s) assigned to the partitions of the mounted VHD, we need to query for partitions and then get volume information of each partition.

Get-DiskImage C:\Users\WinVMAdmin\Downloads\WS2008R2_EnterpriseCore_x64.vhd | Get-Disk | Get-Partition | Get-Volume

If only the drive letter is needed as output then following command would be helpful

(Get-DiskImage C:\Users\WinVMAdmin\Downloads\WS2008R2_EnterpriseCore_x64.vhd | Get-Disk | Get-Partition | Get-Volume).DriveLetter

Get-DiskImage Cmdlet is demonstrated in following picture.

We would love to hear how you are using ISO Mounting. Thank you for reading and enjoy Windows 8!!

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30454

Thanks,

Bruce

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30450

Thanks,

Bruce

Updated: 9/18/2012

This post covers iSCSI Initiator connection management using the Iscsi module for Windows PowerShell available with Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8.

Note: For additional details on management of Windows Disk, Partition, and Volume objects, please refer to the following article:

Managing Storage with Windows PowerShell on Windows Server 2012
https://blogs.msdn.com/b/san/archive/2012/07/03/managing-storage-with-windows-powershell-on-windows-server-2012.aspx

Background:

Prior to Windows Server 2012, iSCSI Initiator connection management via the command line was performed using the iSCSICLI.exe tool from a CMD prompt. The legacy tool iSCSICLI.exe is superseded by the iSCSI module for Windows PowerShell available on Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 (only).

Prerequisites

The iSCSI module requires that the iSCSI Service and its associated firewall rule be enabled in order to report information back. This can be accomplished via either of the following methods:

• Open the iSCSI control panel: The first time that the iSCSI Initiator control panel is opened, you are prompted and asked if you would like to start the service automatically.    

• Use the following commands in PowerShell;
• Set-Service -Name msiscsi -StartupType Automatic

• Start-Service msiscsi

Note: at a minimum, the Windows Firewall rule for the iSCSI Initiator Service must also be enabled for outgoing traffic.

To list available firewall rules related to the MSiSCSI Service, use the following command:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-NetFirewallServiceFilter -Service msiscsi | Get-NetFirewallRule | Select DisplayGroup,DisplayName,Enabled

Connecting to a new iSCSI Target

Connecting to a new iSCSI Target is a two-step process. First an iSCSI Target Portal is established using the New-iSCSITargetPortal cmdlet, and then a connection is established using the Connect-iSCSITarget cmdlet.

Creating a new iSCSI Target Portal

For example, I have a new iSCSI target named DeepSpace that I need to establish a connection with. I would complete the connection using the following command:

New-IscsiTargetPortal –TargetPortalAddress DeepSpace

Viewing available iSCSI Targets

After a new target portal is created, the iSCSI target, and its connection status are displayed via the Get-IscsiTarget cmdlet as shown below:

Connecting to available iSCSI Targets

To connect to all available iSCSI Targets, use the following command:

Get-IscsiTarget | Connect-IscsiTarget

Listing iSCSI Connections and sessions:

View currently connected iSCSI Sessions and connections using the following commands;

To view iSCSI Connections:

Get-iSCSIConnection

To View iSCSI Sessions:

Get-iSCSISession

To list all Windows disks for a specific iSCSI session:

Get-iSCSISession | Get-Disk

Listing the iSCSI IQN for the iSCSI Initiator

You can list the current iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN) by using the following command: The iSCSI IQN for the initiator is typically used when configuring masking sets with an iSCSI Target device to allow access by a specific initiator to an iSCSI Target device.

(Get-InitiatorPort).NodeAddress

Configuring sessions to persist across reboots:

An iSCSI Session that has a property of IsPersistent = $True will automatically attempt reconnection on a system reboot. For example, the connection below is not persistent:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-IscsiSession

AuthenticationType      : NONE
InitiatorInstanceName   : ROOT\ISCSIPRT\0000_0
InitiatorNodeAddress    : iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:deepcore.contoso.com
InitiatorPortalAddress  : 0.0.0.0
InitiatorSideIdentifier : 400001370000
IsConnected             : True
IsDataDigest            : False
IsDiscovered            : False
IsHeaderDigest          : False
IsPersistent            : False
NumberOfConnections     : 1
SessionIdentifier       : fffffa80144f8430-4000013700000003
TargetNodeAddress       : iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:deepspace-deepcore-target
TargetSideIdentifier    : 0300
PSComputerName          :

When connecting to a new iSCSI Target using the Connect-iSCSITarget cmdlet, persistence is managed via the –IsPersistent Boolean value.

For example,

Get-iSCSITarget | Connect-IscsiTarget –IsPersistent $False would prevent the new connection from persisting across reboots.

Note: Connections are persistent by default unless overridden by specifying –IsPersistent $False

For an existing session, if the session is not persistent, it can be made persistent by piping the session to the Register-iSCSISession cmdlet. For example:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-IscsiSession | Where-Object IsPersistent -eq $False

AuthenticationType      : NONE
InitiatorInstanceName   : ROOT\ISCSIPRT\0000_0
InitiatorNodeAddress    : iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:deepcore.contoso.com
InitiatorPortalAddress  : 0.0.0.0
InitiatorSideIdentifier : 400001370000
IsConnected             : True
IsDataDigest            : False
IsDiscovered            : False
IsHeaderDigest          : False
IsPersistent            : False
NumberOfConnections     : 1
SessionIdentifier       : fffffa80144f8430-4000013700000003
TargetNodeAddress       : iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:deepspace-deepcore-target
TargetSideIdentifier    : 0300
PSComputerName          :

In this case, since I have an iSCSI Session which is not persistent, I could pipe this object to Register-IscsiSession to make it persistent.

Get-IscsiSession | Register-IscsiSession

Connecting to an iSCSI Target when using CHAP Secrets

To connect to an iSCSI Target which requires the use of a CHAP secret, you can use the following cmdlet options, and select the appropriate type of CHAP secret to use in the –AuthenticationType parameter.

Get-iScsiTarget | Connect-iScsitarget –AuthenticationType ONEWAYCHAP –ChapUserName <username> -ChapSecret <secret>

Advanced Configuration Management: Using MPIO with iSCSI Connections.

Connecting multiple network adapters in conjunction with iSCSI and MPIO:

Note: MPIO is available on Windows Server versions only.

Tip: List your IPv4 addresses using the Get-NetIPAddress cmdlet

Get-NetIPAddress –AddressFamily IPv4 –PrefixOrigin DHCP

For example, if I stored the output of the above command in the variable $Nics on a machine with 2 network adapters, then $Nics[0].IpAddress returns the IP address for my first NIC, and $Nics[1].Ipaddress returns the IP address for my second NIC.

For the rest of this example, I have used the above to populate two variables;

$Nic1 = $Nics[0]

$Nic2 = $Nics[1]

Configuring MPIO to automatically claim devices:

Tip: By configuring MPIO to automatically claim iSCSI devices (for example) before any are connected, you may be able to avoid an extra reboot when the disks are claimed.

In the example below, I am installing the MPIO feature, enabling automatic claiming of all iSCSI disks, and setting the default load balance policy in MPIO to Round Robin:

# Enable the MPIO Feature
     Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName MultipathIO

# Enable automatic claiming of iSCSI devices for MPIO
     Enable-MSDSMAutomaticClaim -BusType iSCSI

# Set the default load balance policy of all newly claimed devices to Round Robin
     Set-MSDSMGlobalDefaultLoadBalancePolicy -Policy RR

Connecting with MPIO and iSCSI using multiple Network adapters

First we will need to define the targetportal to point to the iSCSI Target. In my example below, the target portal is named DeepSpace

New-IscsiTargetPortal –TargetPortalAddress DeepSpace

Lastly, we would create one MPIO-enabled iSCSI connection per network adapter using the following commands:

Get-IscsiTarget | Connect-IscsiTarget  -IsPersistent $True –IsMultipathEnabled $True –InitiatorPortalAddress $Nic1.IPAddress

Get-IscsiTarget | Connect-IscsiTarget  -IsPersistent $True –IsMultipathEnabled $True –InitiatorPortalAddress $Nic2.IPAddress

Viewing connections to determine which Network Adapter is used

Get-iSCSIConnection displays the IP address for the network adapter used with this connection(s). For example;

Viewing advanced properties for a disk which is connected via iSCSI:

The following example shows listing all disks associated with the active iSCSI Connection(s) in the system. 

This process can also be reversed to determine the iSCSI connections for a specific Disk object such as by passing the output of Get-Disk 1 to Get-iSCSIConnection.

Additional References:

Complete list of cmdlets in the iSCSI module:

For a complete listing of the cmdlets contained in the iSCSI module for Windows PowerShell, please refer to the following document on TechNet:
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh826099.aspx

iSCSI Initiator WMI V2 Classes for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh968118(v=vs.85).aspx

Thanks,

Bruce

This post is intended as an overview of capabilities present in the MPIO module for managing MPIO on Windows Server 2012.

Note: The MPIO feature is available on Windows Server 2012 versions only.

Use of the MPIO module in Windows  PowerShell requires an “elevated” PowerShell window, opened with Administrator privileges.

Query the installation state of MPIO:

To determine if MPIO is currently installed, use the following command:

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online –FeatureName MultiPathIO

Enable or Disable the MPIO Feature:

If the MPIO feature is not currently installed, use the following command to enable the MPIO feature:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online –FeatureName MultiPathIO

 

To disable the MPIO feature, use the following command:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online –FeatureName MultiPathIO

Listing commands available in the MPIO module:
The commands available in the MPIO module can be listed using get-command as shown below

Note: Not all of these cmdlets are available in the Release Preview.

Full help and example content for the MPIO module is available via the following method:

• In PowerShell, after importing the MPIO module or using any MPIO cmdlet, updated help can be downloaded from the internet by running the following command:
  
  • Update-Help
    

Obtaining additional PowerShell help and examples

For a complete list of available PowerShell cmdlets in the MPIO module, including usage and examples, please refer to the following TechNet site:

MPIO Cmdlets in Windows PowerShell
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh826113.aspx

You can also obtain help for individual commands by specifying the cmdlet with Get-Help, such as shown below:

Get-Help Get-MPIOAvailableHW

Obtaining and updating help for Windows PowerShell cmdlets

In Windows 8, PowerShell modules which ship with Windows do not include help content “in-box” instead this content is provided on the Internet, and may be updated via PowerShell from a computer which has Internet access.

Once a PowerShell module has been imported into the current PowerShell session, the help content may be downloaded and updated via the following command:

Update-Help

Note: the –Force parameter must be used if attempting to update more than once per 24 hour period.

The get-help cmdlet offers multiple levels of verbosity, which include

• No switch specified, only basic help is returned.
  
• Detailed provides detailed help
  
• Example provides examples of the cmdlet in use.
  
• Full provides all available help content for the specified cmdlet.

For example, in order to obtain script examples for the Get-MPIOAvailableHW cmdlet, the following command is utilized:

Get-Help Get-MPIOAvailableHW –Examples

Script Example: Configuring MPIO using PowerShell:

In this example, I wish to perform the following tasks:

Tip: If these steps are performed prior to connecting devices of the desired BusType, you can typically avoid the need for a restart.

• Install the MPIO feature on a new Windows Server 2012 installation.
  
• Configure MPIO to automatically claim all iSCSI devices.
  
• Configure the default Load Balance policy for Round Robin.
  
• Set the Windows Disk timeout to 60 seconds.
  
  

Here is what this script would look like:

Scripting the Configuration of MPIO Timer Values

Timers for MPIO can be managed using the Get-MPIOSetting and Set-MPIOSetting PowerShell cmdlets:

Example: Viewing the current MPIO settings.

Additional References:

MPIO PowerShell cmdlets list and help documentation:
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh826113.aspx

This post covers basic provisioning operations against local Windows storage resources using the Storage module for Windows PowerShell.

Note: I will cover using the Storage module in combination with a Storage Management Provider to manage a storage subsystem (array) in a subsequent post.

The Disk, Partition, and Volume objects are associated as shown in the figure below. When starting from a new (blank) disk, you first initialize the disk to create a partition, and then you create a Volume with a file system such as NTFS.

The following sections discuss the operations that you can perform with each type of object – Disk, Partition, and Volume. They also discuss setting the policy of whether to automatically mount new disks, and how to use the various cmdlets to format a new disk for use.

Disk

A Disk object represents a disk as seen by a Windows computer, and does not require an available management provider. An example of a Disk object is a disk displayed in the Disk Management snap-in.

Listing all disks in the system

To list all Disks visible to the operating system, type:

Get-Disk

Listing only the system disk or all disks except the system disk

To list only the system disk, type the following command:

Get-Disk | Where-Object IsSystem -eq $True

To list all disks except the system disk, instead type this command, which pipes the output of the Get-Disk cmdlet to the Where-Object cmdlet:

Get-Disk | where-object IsSystem -eq $False

Listing all disks for a specific storage bus

To list all disks attached via a specific storage bus, type the following command, replacing <BusType> with the bus you want to query:

Get-Disk | Where-Object -Eq <BusType>

For example, to list all of the Storage Spaces that are connected, query disks connected via the “Spaces” bus. This method can also be used for other bus types, such as iSCSI and USB:

Clearing all of the partitions and volumes from a disk

To clear all partitions and volumes from a disk, backup all data on all volumes on the disk, and then type the following command:

Warning: This is operation cannot be undone; it will clear all partitions and volumes from the disk and allows the disk to be re-initialized and create a new partition and volume.

Clear-Disk 6 -RemoveData

Note: If the specified disk contains an OEM partition, such as for system recovery, it is also necessary to specify the –RemoveOEM switch when using the clear-disk cmdlet.

Initializing a disk

To initialize a disk to allow creation of a partition and volume, type the following command, where <DiskNumber> is the number of the disk to initialize:

Initialize-Disk <DiskNumber>

Note: All disks are initialized as GPT by default unless otherwise specified.

To initialize a disk as MBR, use the –PartitionStyle parameter. For example:

Initialize-Disk 4 –PartitionStyle MBR

Listing all disks that are offline

To list all disks that are currently offline, type the following command:
Get-Disk | Where-Object IsOffline –Eq $True

Bringing all offline disks online

To bring all disks that are currently offline back online, type the following command:

Get-Disk | Where-Object IsOffline –Eq $True | Set-Disk –IsOffline $False

Partition

A Disk object can contain one or more logical regions called partitions, which are represented by a Partition object. With the exception of special purpose partitions such as a Microsoft Reserved (MSR), or OEM recovery partition, Microsoft recommends creating one data partition per disk.

Listing all of the partitions on all disks

To list all partitions on all disks, type the following command:

Get-Partition

Listing all of the partitions on a specific disk

To list all partitions on a specific disk, type the following command, replacing <DiskNumber> with the number of the appropriate disk:

Get-Partition –DiskNumber <DiskNumber>

Creating a new partition on a new disk

To create a new partition on a blank disk, first use the Initialize-Disk cmdlet, then type the following command, replacing <DiskNumber> with the number of the appropriate disk:

New-Partition –DiskNumber <DiskNumber> -UseMaximumSize -AssignDriveLetter

Volume

A Volume object is the highest level object in the Disk-Partition-Volume hierarchy and represents a Partition object that has been formatted with a file system such as NTFS or ReFS and is available for data storage.

Listing all volumes

To list all volumes accessible to Windows, type:

Get-Volume

Listing the volume for a specific drive letter

To list the volume for a specific drive letter, type the following, replacing <DriveLetter> with the letter of the drive you want to view:

Get-Volume –DriveLetter <DriveLetter>

Formatting a volume

To format a volume with the NTFS file system, type the following, replacing <DriveLetter> with the letter of the drive you want to format:

Format-Volume -DriveLetter <DriveLetter>

Storage Settings object

The new disk policy (previously known as the SAN Policy) is the policy Windows uses to determine whether Windows should automatically ‘mount’ disks that are detected as new.

Viewing the new disk policy

To view the new disk policy, type the following command:

Get-StorageSetting | Select-Object NewDiskPolicy

Set the NewDiskPolicy

To set the new disk policy, type the following command:

Set-StorageSetting –NewDiskPolicy OfflineShared

Note: The default setting for NewDiskPolicy on Windows 8 is OnlineAll. The default setting on all Windows Server 2012 editions is OfflineShared.

Combined Example: Format a New Disk

To format a new disk that has not been initialized, first we should get all Disk objects and then pipe the objects to the Where-Object cmdlet to select only disks with the RAW partition style (which indicates that the disks haven’t yet been initialized). To do so, type the following command:

Get-Disk | Where-Object PartitionStyle –Eq "RAW"

Then, use the Initialize-Disk cmdlet to initialize the disk. After that, use the New-Partition cmdlet to create a partition on the disk, and pipe the output to the Format-Volume cmdlet to format the volume with the NTFS file system. To do so, type the following commands:

Initialize-disk 3

New-Partition -DiskNumber 3 -UseMaximumSize -AssignDriveLetter | Format-Volume -NewFileSystemLabel "Mirror" -FileSystem NTFS

Bruce Langworthy

Senior Program Manager – Windows Storage and Filesystems

Before I delve into the actual usage of the cmdlets present in the Storage module, I wanted to explain a bit about how the parameters and information are displayed. The default view of most Storage cmdlets display only the most commonly accessed properties of an object, which can be a little confusing unless you know there are other parameters that you can access.

For the first article in this series, see the post below:

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/san/archive/2012/06/26/an-introduction-to-storage-management-in-windows-server-2012.aspx

The Storage module uses a custom object format that varies the parameters returned based on whether the object is viewed in table or list format. This is done so that the default (table) view is easy to read.

To display an expanded set of properties, use the Format-List cmdlet shown in Figure 1. For example, Get-Disk | Format-List.

Note: In the figure below, FL is an alias to Format-List.

To view a complete list of properties, use the Format-List * command shown in Figure 3. For example, Get-Disk | Format-List *).

Figure 1: The default (table) view for Get-Disk

Figure 2: The list view for Get-Disk

Figure 3: The list view of ALL object properties for Get-Disk. (Using Format-List *)

Available Windows PowerShell modules related to managing Storage

Storage Management scenarios are managed via Windows PowerShell in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 using the following modules:

To obtain a list of the commands in any of these modules, use the following commands in Windows PowerShell:

Get-Command –Module <ModuleName>

For example, to obtain a list of all of the Windows PowerShell cmdlets in the Storage module, use the following commands:

Get-Command –Module Storage

Obtaining and Updating help for Windows PowerShell Modules:

In Windows 8, Windows PowerShell Help includes only a basic listing of parameters “in-box”. The complete Help is published to Microsoft TechNet, and you can update Windows PowerShell to include this Help from any computer that has Internet access.

Once a Windows PowerShell module has been imported into the current Windows PowerShell session, the help content may be downloaded and updated via the following command:

Update-Help

Note: the –Force parameter must be used if attempting to update more than once per 24 hour period.

To display help for a specific cmdlet, use the following command:

Get-Help <Cmdlet>

For example, to get help for the Get-Disk cmdlet, use

Get-Help Get-Disk

The get-help cmdlet offers multiple levels of verbosity, which include

• No parameter specified, only basic help is displayed.
• Detailed provides detailed help
• Example provides examples of the cmdlet in use.
• Full provides all available help content for the specified cmdlet.

For example, to obtain script examples for the Get-Disk cmdlet, use the following command:

Get-Help Get-Disk –Examples

This returns output similar to the following:

Figure 4: The Help examples included with the Get-Disk cmdlet

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 contain the Storage Management API, associated WMI classes, and the Storage module for Windows PowerShell.

Note: Windows PowerShell and the Storage module are not available by default in Windows PE. I will cover in a subsequent post building a custom Windows PE image that includes the Storage module and Windows PowerShell optional components for Windows PE.

The Windows Standards-Based Storage Management Service is available only on Windows Server 2012, and is required for the use of SMI-S providers with Storage Management (it is also not available from Windows PE).

Other available management interfaces for storage:

Storage Spaces Control Panel

Windows 8 includes the Storage Spaces control panel item, shown in Figure 5. The Storage Spaces control panel item provides a simple user interface that end-users can use to configure and manage the Storage Spaces subsystem for personal storage. It cannot be used for management of other Storage Management Providers, and is available only on Windows 8.

Figure 5: Storage Spaces in Control Panel in Windows 8

File and Storage Services canvas in Server Manager

Windows Server 2012 includes the File and Storage Services role in Server Manager, which enables you to remotely manage multiple file servers from a single window, including Storage Spaces, and other installed Storage Management Providers or SMI-S providers.

Figure 6: File and Storage Services in Server Manager in Windows Server 2012

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 include a rich set of management classes intended for use by developers creating management applications for storage.