Matthew01 Posted May 19, 2017 Share Posted May 19, 2017 Hi I am wanting to experiment around with Windows 2016 File Server Clusters I am wanting to Build a 2x Node Fail over File Server Cluster. I don't have a SAN or any other shared storage devices I am wanting to use local storage and wanting to know if I can use VHD as my local storage, I will be using Windows 2016 Datacentre as VMs not installed on a 2x Physical Hosts. Is their any good articles / guides / to help me set this up. Regards Matthew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason S. Global Moderator Posted May 25, 2017 Global Moderator Share Posted May 25, 2017 here's a few sites: https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-55-setup-mscs.pdf https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2147661 https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1037959 There's a very specific way you need to set up the storage so that both VMs can access the data. Are you using VMware or Hyper-V? In vCenter, you have to create a VMDK on the primary server, then create its own SCSI bus. afterward you have to set it to 'physical'. anyway, im rambling. Look for an example on youtube. there are guides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPreston Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 (edited) You can use your local storage by using Starwind or Storage Spaces 2 Direct but the downside of this is that you have to sync all the data between the two servers if there is an unexpected reboot. Also this increases the chances of corruption Which version is most up to date ? If you can run another physical computer to host an ISCSI target the one in windows will work or Starwind (better performance if you don't have a RAID card). If you have multiple nics you can even use MPIO. Whatever way you create the storage the way to use it is pretty easy, on all servers Enable MPIO and add compatibly for ISCSI devices. Install the failover cluster feature. Create a cluster. Connect to the ISCSI targets. Enable MPIO for the devices if your target supports it. Go to disk manager on either server and enable/initialise the cluster disks. Create a new partition on the cluster disks. Go to disks in the failover cluster manager. Hit Add Disk and your cluster disks will be discovered. Then to create a Scale Out File Server (both nodes active at the same time) by adding a role to the server. Simple, You can even use this to host VMs, ISCSI is old tech but this should be good enough for a lab. Edited May 25, 2017 by TPreston Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesWicks Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 On 5/19/2017 at 4:13 AM, Matthew01 said: Hi I am wanting to experiment around with Windows 2016 File Server Clusters I am wanting to Build a 2x Node Fail over File Server Cluster. I don't have a SAN or any other shared storage devices I am wanting to use local storage and wanting to know if I can use VHD as my local storage, I will be using Windows 2016 Datacentre as VMs not installed on a 2x Physical Hosts. Is their any good articles / guides / to help me set this up. Regards Matthew I agree with TPreston, StarWind and S2D are those you should look at deploying shared storage using local underlying one. From my expirience S2D does well job from 4+ node cluster and obviously, when you have Windows Server Datacenter Edition License. Essentially, StarWind seems to be the first option here since provides hyperconverged 2-node cluster for free (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san-free). I found the guidance useful to get things done with https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san-hyper-converged-2-nodes-scenario-2-nodes-with-hyper-v-cluster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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