- \n
- Your hosts are clustered \u2013 net necessarily in the same cluster<\/li>\n
- The shared VHDX file is placed on SMB 3.0 or CSV \u2013 note that an SMB 3.0 file share can be used by multiple host clusters<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In my lab, my virtual SOFS is placed onto a single storage box that is running Hyper-V.\u00a0 At TechEd, Jose Barreto mentioned a solution for labs that is unsupported<\/span><\/strong><\/em> but works.\u00a0 Using this I can use my single non-clustered host to run VMs that access a shared VHDX.\u00a0 I can then cluster those VMs to create a guest cluster, e.g. a virtual SOFS.<\/p>\n
The steps:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Run (PowerShell) Install-WindowsFeature Failover-Clustering <\/em>on the host.\u00a0 There is no need to create a cluster from this host.<\/li>\n
- Identify the volume that will store the shared VHDX files, e.g. D: drive.<\/li>\n
- Run FLTMC.EXE attach svhdxflt D:<\/em> where D: is the drive letter that you just identified.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Now you\u2019re ready to create a shared VHDX.\u00a0 My VMs are in D:Virtual Machines<\/em>.\u00a0 I\u2019m creating a guest cluster called Demo-FSC1<\/em>.\u00a0 The shared VHDX files will be stored in D:Shared VHDXDemo-SOFS1<\/em>.\u00a0 I created Demo-FSC1 Witness Disk.VHDX<\/em> (1 GB in size) and Demo-FSC1 Disk1.VHDX<\/em> (100 GB in size) and stored it in that folder (D:Shared VHDXDemo-SOFS1)<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Now for the VMs:<\/p>\n
- \n
- I created 2 VMs for my virtual SOFS, Demo-FS1 and Demo-FS2, giving them all enough network connections for my design (see below screenshot, highlighted in green [requires guest OS QoS]).<\/li>\n
- I added the shared VHDX files to the first SCSI controller on both <\/em>virtual machines.\u00a0 Don\u2019t overthink this \u2013 there is no replication so please don\u2019t ask.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t possibly make this clearer.\u00a0 Each individual VHDX (a total of 2) is connected to each of the 2 VMs (see below).<\/li>\n
- I make sure to open up the advanced settings of the shared VHDX on both VMs and check the box Enable Virtual Hard Disk Sharing.<\/li>\n
- I went on to create and add Demo-FSC1 Disk2.VHDX<\/em> and Demo-FSC1 Disk3.VHDX<\/em>, both 100 GB in size.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
![\"EnableSharedVHDX\"](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/EnableSharedVHDX_thumb.jpg\" "\\"EnableSharedVHDX\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nAt this point, I do all the usual storage, networking and clustering stuff in the guest OS of the 2 VMs.\u00a0 In the cluster, I made sure both storage networks had client access enabled (with an IP address).\u00a0 When creating the guest cluster, I did not add storage.\u00a0 Instead, I did something else that is unsupported.<\/p>\n
I took the 3 shared VHDX data disks, and created a new storage space.<\/p>\n
![\"StoragePool\"](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/StoragePool_thumb.jpg\" "\\"StoragePool\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nFrom this, I created 2 virtual disks, one with NTFS and one with ReFS, and converted bot volumes into CSV.\u00a0 Now I have what I need to finish off the creation of the SOFS role on the file server cluster.<\/p>\n
![\"Finsihed](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Finsihed-Storage_thumb.jpg\" "\\"Finsihed")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow I add the SOFS role (File Server for Application Data) to the cluster, wait a while for the CAP to come online (remember to delegate permissions to the cluster\u2019s OU to the cluster object so the cluster can create the SOFS computer object), and then create the file shares.<\/p>\n
![\"SOFS](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/SOFS-with-Shares_thumb.jpg\" "\\"SOFS")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat I haven\u2019t done or shown:<\/p>\n
- \n
- \nQOS for the storage NICs.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
SMB Constraints<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nNow I have my storage.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to prep VMM 2012 R2 to do some bare metal host deployment and get a Hyper-V cluster up and running.<\/p>\n
Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2012 R2<\/a>,Storage<\/a>,Hyper-V<\/a>,Virtualisation<\/a>,Failover Clustering<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this post, I\u2019ll show you how I created a Windows Server 2012 R2 SMB 3.0 Scale-Out File Server that uses Shared VHDX to create a simulated JBOD for clustered Storage Spaces.\u00a0 This is completely unsupported for production, but is nice for the lab to demo, teach and learn. Shared VHDX allows us to build … Continue reading “Creating A Virtual WS2012R2 SOFS with Shared VHDX & Storage Spaces”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[63,181,99,195,120],"class_list":["post-15145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hyper-v","tag-failover-clustering","tag-hyper-v","tag-storage","tag-virtualisation","tag-windows-server-2012-r2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
- \n
- Run (PowerShell) Install-WindowsFeature Failover-Clustering <\/em>on the host.\u00a0 There is no need to create a cluster from this host.<\/li>\n