Small businesses need a lot of elements to coalesce together to make things run smoothly as possible in day to day business. This is particularly true when dealing with data storage and data protection, two things that are essential to the success of any small business with a network of computers.

According to eWeek, Microsoft has decided to “abandon” its Drive Extender technology for small businesses, instead focusing on three new packages available to these businesses. The Drive Extender gave administrators the ability to take several hard drives and bring them together in a single volume. This project was supposed to be a huge boon for the Microsoft small business platforms, but ended up being somewhat of a bust:

“The Drive Extender feature, while highly anticipated, has not been without its share of controversy. In an earlier version from 2007, a serious bug caused data corruption amongst some users. Despite Leworthy’s claim that the change was fueled by customer and tester feedback, the comments on the Windows Home Server blog were negative, with customers angry that the “key feature/selling point” was being removed.”

Microfsoft has decided to shift its focus onto three new products that are currently in beta testing:

“Home Server, code-named “Vail,” Small Business Server Essentials, code-named “Aurora,” and Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, code-named “Breckenridge,” are all in beta and are expected to be released in the first half of 2011…the anticipated product launch date remains the same, with a new beta without Drive Extender to be available early in the year.”

Be sure that if you are currently utilizing Drive Extender to supplement your data system – you may not have support after the full versions of Vail, Aurora and Breckinridge are released.