Inside Windows Storage: Server Storage Technologies for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Beyond

1.10 Summary

Windows NT has been designed as a layered and extensible operating system, especially with regard to the storage and I/O subsystem. We can easily add new devices by writing a driver of the appropriate type (such as a SCSI miniport driver or a Storport minidriver).

It is fairly easy to add functionality to Windows NT by adding a storage device driver that is a filter driver. Microsoft itself has written such a driver as part of its Hierarchical Storage Management application.

Writing Windows NT drivers requires a fair amount of specialized knowledge and access to the appropriate development kits.