Network World has published a slide show on the major highlights of Windows 2012. Unfortunately there isn't much in the release that makes the upgrade pressing.
Some key features for SMB:
- Resilient File System (ReFS) -- Win2012 will have a new file system beyond just NTFS. The new file system supports more storage and the stability requirements needed when you go beyond 256TB. This feature really only applies to those SMBs with multi-TB volumes.
- Data Deduplication -- This is a common feature on many storage arrays, but many SMBs have simple DAS without this advanced feature. For a basic file server, dedup can reduce space by up to 40%. Dedup volumes can also be used as backup targets for additional savings
There are some other features that I would define as specialty cases that don't apply to all SMBs. For example there were improvements related to Hyper-V. (I don't know anyone running Hyper-V. ESX, RedHat, and Xen only) Also some improvements on IIS for heavy loads. (I don't know anyone running IIS under heavy loads. (Apache and Nginx for heavy loaded web servers.
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