The next version of Windows Home Server (WHS) will drop the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) driver extender, an advanced feature that takes multiple hard disks of disparate capacities and "pools" them together into a simple volume. In addition, Microsoft says the feature will also be removed from the beta of Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

Writing on Windows Home Server blog, Michael Leworthy, who is Microsoft's Windows Server senior technical product manager, said that this decision was made with feedback obtained from partners and customers. Leworthy wrote: "Today, large hard drives of over 1TB are reasonably priced, and freely available. We are also seeing further expansion of hard drive sizes at a fast rate, where 2TB drives and more are becoming easily accessible."

Unfortunately, the decision appears to be widely unpopular and possibly ill-advised. The blog post has garnered more than 140 comments so far, with the overwhelming majority harshly critical of the decision to drop drive extender, though it remains to be seen whether Microsoft will move to reverse its stance. The next version of WHS is scheduled to arrive in the first half of 2011.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this article at The Inquirer

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