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I have two host servers with Windows 2012 Hyper-V installed. I have also configured File and Storage Services with one Storage Pool, one Virtual Disk on each server. I used Star Wind SAN for Hyper-V and configured Quorum Disk using iSCSI. So I have C: for Windows install, E: for the Virtual Disk and Q: for the quorum disk. When I run the Validate Cluster Configuration Wizard, it sets the quorum disk to offline to run the storage test. This is expected but it also sets the Virtual Disk E: to offline for the duration of the test. The test succeeds and I am able to configure the cluster but a few of my services were down because they depend on the drive E:. Is there a way to tell the Validate Cluster Configuration Wizard not to look at the drive E:?

Szymon Choinski
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  • Why? You're not going to run the validation wizard on an ongoing basis are you? Shut down the VM's, run the validation, restart the VM's. – joeqwerty Nov 15 '13 at 18:21
  • The way Star Wind works is that it creates a file and then it exports it as iSCSI disk. Initially, I was putting the quorum disk image on the E: drive but needless to say, it didn't work because the whole E: drive was going offline. The validation succeeded when I put the quorum image on C:. This is not a show stopper, only medium annoyance. It also complicates things if I ever have to run validation test again. – Szymon Choinski Nov 15 '13 at 18:36
  • I guess I don't really understand how this relates to the Quorum disk or the StarWind SAN. - You have virtualized workloads on E. You run the Cluster Validation wizard which takes E offline as part of the test. This knocks your virtualized workloads offline. So the solution is to not run the Cluster Validation tests while you have running workloads on your Cluster storage. Why would you run the Cluster Validation while you're running live VM's? Take your workloads/services/VM's offline then run the validation. – joeqwerty Nov 15 '13 at 18:43

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First of all I don`t really understand why do you need Storage Spaces in this scenario - StarWind is fully powered to give the SAN disks and the clusters CSV. If the problem is that your E drive is storing the StarWind image files, then just stop bringing it to cluster and move all the data on the SAN.

What I can say for sure - you are doing everything correctly from the SAN software stand point if the cluster is still creating.

Anatoly Vilchinsky
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  • I don't need storage spaces but I wanted to use them because of their flexibility. I want to manage all of the hdds and ssds using them. StarWind is great in terms of performance but once a disk is created, it's hard to change most settings. I wanted to have a storage server and then expose disks via iSCSI as needed. I found out that you can specify disks for validation if you use 2012 R2 so I guess the solution is to upgrade to 2012 R2. Another solution would be to separate file server and hyperv cluster but Star Wind specifically has a product that's supposed to work with hyperv(and it does) – Szymon Choinski Nov 16 '13 at 21:16
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    OK, gotcha. Well, storing the StarWind image files on Storage Spaces should work best for you, as I can see it. Anyway, my guideline for you is to move as much on SAN as possible and don`t give the E drive to cluster, and then all you want should work =. – Anatoly Vilchinsky Nov 16 '13 at 21:42
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It could happen that the OS thinks that your E drives have similar serials. Also, what stands behind the E drive on the cluster nodes, is it just DAS?

Stuka
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