Windows Storage Spaces
Windows Storage Spaces (WSS) is a feature in Microsoft Windows Server 2012 that is used to virtualize and provision storage.
Data storage administrators can use Windows Storage Spaces to create storage pools and provision virtual disks from the usable capacity of those pools. These virtual disks appear to the host as physical disks and they can span multiple physical volumes, which allows them to be thinly provisioned. A Storage Spaces virtual disk can also be mirrored or striped with parity, adding resiliency as a result.
Because it abstracts storage from the physical storage devices in a Windows Server 2012 environment, Storage Spaces provides resiliency and redundancy. Microsoft recommends provisioning storage by using WSS rather than Disk Management Console, though the Disk Management Console can still be used.
