MS Docs Update on S2D: Storage Spaces Direct hardware requirements

On Saturday, March 24, 2018,  Microsoft has updated the Hardware requirements for Storage Spaces Direct page to clarify direct-attached external enclosures supported with Storage Spaces Direct for HCI Clusters.

S2D Base requirements

• All systems, components, devices, and drivers must be Certified for Windows Server 2016 per the Windows Server Catalog.
• The fully configured cluster (servers, networking, and storage) must pass all cluster validation tests per the wizard in Failover Cluster Manager or with the Test-Cluster cmdlet in PowerShell.

Drives and Drives interconnect

Storage Spaces Direct works with direct-attached SATA, SAS, or NVMe drives that are physically attached to just one server each. For more help choosing drives, see the Choosing drives topic.

• SATA, SAS, and power-loss protectionVMe (M.2, U.2, and Add-In-Card) drives are all supported
• 512n, 512e, and 4K native drives are all supported
• Solid-state drives must provide power-loss protection
• Same number and types of drives in every server – see Drive symmetry considerations
• Recommended: Number of capacity drives is a whole multiple of the number of cache drives
• Recommended: Cache drives should have high write endurance: at least 3 drive-writes-per-day (DWPD) or at least 4 terabytes written (TBW) per day – see Understanding drive writes per day (DWPD), terabytes written (TBW), and the minimum recommended for Storage Spaces Direct

For more information on Storage Spaces Direct amazing Software Defined Storage technology:

• Read all documentation on S2D here
• And design and configure your S2D configuration with the Storage Spaces Direct Calculator

Enjoy the road to the Hyper-Converged world with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and Hyper-V,
Jeff/