Storage Foundation (SFW) is a host-level volume manager that provides a means to virtualize the storage that is seen by the host it runs on. SFW provides central-point control of that storage space.

By running SFW in the Microsoft Hyper-V parent partition, SFW features and functionality extend to the virtual machines (VMs), offering benefits that would otherwise be unavailable at the guest level.

See How Storage Foundation manages storage for virtual machines.

SFW has added the following features and functionality specifically to support Microsoft Hyper-V VMs when running SFW in the Hyper-V parent:

SFW also offers advanced features and functionality, such as multi-pathing, replication, and snapshots, which further extend the capabilities of Windows in the data center. More information is available on how to use the following features and the benefits they provide in a Hyper-V environment:

See About using optional Storage Foundation features in the Hyper-V parent.