Windows Server 2025 enhances Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) performance with native NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) support, increased storage tier efficiency, and automated Cluster-Aware Updating (CAU) for hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI).

S2D Cluster Validation via PowerShell

# Validate 4-node cluster readiness for S2D
Test-Cluster -Node Node1, Node2, Node3, Node4 -Include "Storage Spaces Direct", "Inventory", "Network"

# Create Failover Cluster
New-Cluster -Name S2D-Cluster -Node Node1, Node2, Node3, Node4 -StaticAddress 192.168.10.50

# Enable Storage Spaces Direct with automatic cache tiering
Enable-ClusterS2D -AutoConfig:$true