Microsoft Ditches Drive Extender, Customers Furious

Microsoft recently announced the decision to drop the Drive Extender feature found in several of its server products, including Windows Home Server (code-named "Vail"), Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Server Essentials.

Drive Extender is a storage technology that enables the of use internal and external hard drives for additional storage on a server. Folder Duplication for specific shared folders on servers is one of the capabilities that allow for the maintaining of two copies of a shared folder on separate hard drives to help protect against the failure of a single hard drive.

Microsoft cites several reasons for the decision. Since SBS 2011 and Storage Server are business offerings, those customers will find storage alternatives in hardware RAID, and application compatibility and data portability solutions.