Given that there are not many references dealing with Windows Server Storage, this book has value for the developer in understanding the nuts and bolts of the technology as well as the administrator in learning how this technology and the operating system interoperate. Dilip Naik succeeds quite well in both areas.

The detail in the hardware requirements, types of devices, communication protocols - all important in understanding the technology if you are going to administer or program for it. How it communicates with Windows and the driver model is of particular interest to me as a Systems Engineer - if it's not functioning properly, I have to know - in detail, how it talks to the OS.

Eliminating layers is the only way to narrow down the possibilities. The diagrams and the associated detail of the kernel, driver, protocol and disk layers are invaluable to the topic at hand.

In the journey through this book, you start with a basic introduction to Windows NT and Windows NT storage devices. This is the basis for all that comes, but may be familiar to many who deal with driver and kernel technology. Next is Direct Attached Storage, Network Attached Storage, and an intro to Fibre Channel SAN. No storage technology is complete without discussion of backup and restoration. And, file systems are an important treatment in the book as well.

There is a chapter on storage management - and for an administrator, clearly this is the area in which the book is light. Much more could have been done with this, but the focus of the book is not on the administrator - but slanted more to aiding the developer in understanding the technology.

IP Storage, iSCSI, and InfiniBand are discussed, as is the Windows spin on the implementations. High Availability and RAID options are expanded upon, as well as some third party options.

Finally is a discussion of storage features by Windows version release, Windows NT, 2000 and Server 2003. Included is a short discussion of what's missing, and a discussion of futures.

Naik does an admirable job in delivering a book dealing with complex technology and attempting to provide information in which infrastructure technologists as well as developers can glean value from it. Though there is no code in the book, that's not the goal - it's about the technology.

If you're looking for a good reference in Windows Storage Technologies (and the supporting hardware, firmware, and software), this is one that should find it's way onto your shelf.

I found certain chapters way above my head ( I am a software person, not hardware) but other chapters, especially the ones dealing with SANs and RAID configurations) incredibly useful. It answered a lot of questions I had on the different RAID configurations

This was kind of book which I was looking for sometime. Generally, one finds lot of books on Storage Technologies, SAN, Fibre Channel etc, written with system administrative perspective. This book is the next step. It gives nice technical intrduction of storage technologies and how they have been implemented on Windows Server. It is good resource for sys admins and management folks who want to understand storage feature in greater detail. The language is nice and easy. Though, sometime you feel the flow is not very smooth and its jerky sometimes. It covers pretty much all the storage features available on Windows. I believe this book is a good step in the right direction. It is technical to some level but obviously not enough for a system level programmer. Some of the details are missing( which might be intentional). Topics need to exploded further so that it can serve as a great reference. The book does not point to some of the challenges facing Windows Server Storage