Is it possible to boot Windows 1809 system from Storage Spaces

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The Surface Pro 2017 1TB boots from a 2 drive Storage Spaces pool.

Thomas Maurer wrote a blog entry with some observations on how the Surface may do it and there are a few forum posts about it.

Does anyone know how it does it and if its possible to do on a standard Windows 1809 system (server or workstation)?

  • Some sort of built in UEFI driver for Storage Spaces (this would seem like overkill just for one SKU)
  • A UEFI accessible reserved partition alongside storage spaces
  • Something else...

Peter Wishart

Posted 2019-02-01T11:45:22.637

Reputation: 156

According to the links you posted the UEFI is unable to boot from Storage Spaces, which I find quite logical. One opinion I have seen is that the Surface Pro 2017 has specialized UEFI firmware, and this sounds very convincing. So I would answer that booting from Storage Spaces requires UEFI firmware that supports it, which afaik doesn't exist (yet?). – harrymc – 2019-02-01T13:05:09.343

Answers

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I was able to get a copy of the UEFI firmware for this model, and opening with UEFITool I can see a DXE driver called "MsHyperSpaceDriver" - description is "Storage Spaces EFI Driver".

So that would seem to be how it does it.

I've read of NVMe DXE drivers being injected to UEFI firmware for the purpose of adding boot compatibility, so perhaps its possible to do something similar for this driver.

Peter Wishart

Posted 2019-02-01T11:45:22.637

Reputation: 156

Asked: 2019-02-01T11:45:22.637

Viewed: 946 times

Active: 2019-02-06T00:08:52.123