SOLID STATES
Windows offers two features to accelerate Storage Space performance: write-back cache and SSD tiers. On the consumer release of Windows 10, these can only be implemented through PowerShell when the Space is originally created. We failed to add an SSD tier to a parity array of HDDs, but did have success with a single SSD and a simple array, plus a mirrored SSD and HDD array. We’ll look at how to create both. We’re starting the process from a blank slate, so first remove your Spaces and pools. We’ll be using PowerShell (the fifth Ninja Turtle), so search for that, and run it in Administrator mode. Step one is to create a variable that stores the available blank drives; run this command without $disks = to see the output. We can then create our pool from that list.
$disks = Get-PhysicalDisk -CanPool
$True New-StoragePool -PhysicalDisks $disks –StorageSubSystemFriendlyName “Windows Storage*” -FriendlyName “Pool”
$ssd = New-StorageTier -StoragePoolFriendlyName “Pool” -FriendlyName SSDTier -MediaType SSD $hdd = New-StorageTier -StoragePoolFriendlyName “Pool” -FriendlyName HDDTier -MediaType HDD
New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName “Pool” -FriendlyName MySpace -StorageTiers $ssd, $hdd -StorageTierSizes 400GB, 3000GB -ResiliencySettingName Simple -WriteCacheSize 10GB
New-VirtualDisk -StoragePoolFriendlyName “Pool” -FriendlyName MySpace -StorageTiers $ssd, $hdd -StorageTierSizes 400GB, 2000GB -ResiliencySettingName Mirror -WriteCacheSize 10GB
Next, we create two more variables that store the details for what will be our SSD tier and HDD tier for drives.
Finally, we create a Storage Space with the New-VirtualDisk command—you’ll need to change the -StorageTierSizes values to suit your devices.
Open the Manage Spaces control panel and you’ll see a new unformatted space. You can format and manage it within the GUI from here. If you have two SSDs, you’re in luck, because you can create a cached mirror space. Repeat the last set of commands, but this time around, simply enable the ResiliencySettingName as Mirror . We assume that if you had three SSDs, you’d be able to enable parity.