WS2012 Storage - Creating a Storage Pool and a Storage Space (aka Virtual Disk) using PowerShell

In my previous posts I talked about how to use NFS and iSCSI technologies hosted on Windows Server 2012 and how to deploy those to my Home Lab ESXi servers.

• WS2012 Storage - iSCSI Target Server - Create an iSCSI target using PowerShell
• WS2012 Storage - iSCSI Target Server - Configuring an iSCSI Initiator on VMware vSphere 5.1
• WS2012 Storage - NFS Server - Configure NFS for VMware vSphere 5.1

One point I did not covered was: How to do the Initial setup with the physical disk, Storage pooling and the creating the Virtual Disk(s) ?

The cost to acquire and manage highly available and reliable storage can represent a significant part of the IT budget. Windows Server 2012 addresses this issue by delivering a sophisticated virtualized storage feature called Storage Spaces as part of the WS2012 Storage platform. This provides an alternative option for companies that require advanced storage capabilities at lower price point.

WS2012 Storage - iSCSI Target Server - Configuring an iSCSI Initiator on VMware vSphere 5.1

I recently switched the backend storage of my VMware vSphere 5.1 Home Lab from FreeNas (OS based on UNIX) to iSCSI (Windows Server 2012 Storage Feature). The reason is that I wanted to play with the PowerShell iSCSI modules and do some tests with SMB v3.0.

In a previous post I showed how to create an iSCSI target using PowerShell on Windows Server 2012. Today I will demonstrate how I set the VMware vSphere 5.1 Software iSCSI Adapter using PowerCli and create the datastore using the LUN created in my previous post. I won't cover how to assign the iSCSI traffic to a dedicated PortGroup and dedicated NICs.