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Storage Spaces returns to Windows Server's semi-annual channel

And this time it's caught up by adding data de-duplication

Microsoft's revealed that Storage Spaces Direct will return in the next semi-annual version of Windows Server.

Storage Spaces is Microsoft's software-defined and/or hyperconverged storage tool and mysteriously disappeared from Windows Server 1709.

Microsoft's since teased further “hyper-converged innovation” in “another release available very soon.”

Now the company has announced the release of a preview build of the Windows Server semi-anual release due in the first half of 2018. Details are thin, but Microsoft's announcement said that the software-defined storage tool will include data deduplication and Microsoft's Resilient File System (ReFS).

The only other addition Redmond's revealed is the ability to use localhost or loopback (127.0.0.1) to access services running in containers on the host.

Redmond's also revealed Insider builds of the “Honolulu” web-based PowerShell-killer. Microsoft has added “support for managing Windows 10 in a new 'Computer Management' solution, a new Remote Desktop tool for connecting directly to targeted machines, and some performance improvements and bug fixes” since the first public builds.

Microsoft has not revealed whether the Windows Server preview is the big new hyperconverged innovation it has promised. ReFS has been around since Windows Server 2012, while data deduplication is a tick-box feature for any storage software or appliance, so The Register imagines Redmond has something up its sleeve. The company is also silent on when the next Windows Server semi-annual release, or Honolulu, will formally debut. If it sticks to its six-month release cadence, Windows Server will earn the name 1803 and emerge in March 2018. ®

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