| Feature Name |
Description |
| Storage Area Network (SAN) support |
New SAN support improves the interaction between Windows and the SAN and simplifies volume mounting and dismounting through the aid of a SAN friendly button. |
| Virtual Disk Service (VDS) |
This new central disk service provides APIs to both storage hardware and management programs, allowing multi-vendor solutions to integrate seamlessly. |
| Multipath Input/Output (I/O) |
The Multipath I/O Driver Development Kit allows hardware vendors to create interoperability solutions for load balancing and multipathing to host storage devices. It supports up to 32 paths. |
| Volume Shadow Copy service |
This service creates a disk "snapshot" at regular intervals, allowing users to use a self-service file restore process (called Previous Versions) and supporting open file backups. Volume Shadow Copy service provides drivers for applications that typically have open files and can be problematic when taking backups. |
| Automated System Recovery (ASR) |
This system protection tool has been migrated from Windows XP to Windows Server 2003. |
| Distributed File System (DFS) |
Several enhancements, such as multiple roots on a single server, administration delegation through Active Directory, more reliable load-balancing, and better file replication between sites, make this technology the ideal replacement for mapped drives. |
| Geographically-dispersed server clusters |
Geo-clusters provide redundancy and disaster recovery strategies in a single implementation. |