Storage Spaces Direct

With Windows Server 2016, we are able to use direct-attached storage devices such as JBOD or internally to the storage nodes to create a highly available storage solution. The storage devices can be connected by either SATA, NVMe, or SAS. The storage devices can be SSD or HDD. To support the high availability, Storage Spaces Direct leverages the Failover Cluster Windows feature.

Storage spaces direct with internal disks

A minimum of two nodes is required in the cluster, but not all the Storage Spaces Direct features will be available. To use Multi-Resilient virtual disks (we will discuss it later in this chapter), you need a minimum of four nodes. If you need this feature to gain the maximal performance of this solution, I recommend that you implement at least a four-node cluster. Storage Spaces Direct supports a cluster with a maximum of 16 nodes.

Storage spaces direct leverages failover cluster and SMB protocol

Regarding the network, at least 10 GB/s network adapters...