I am not using a SAN to setup Win2003 CLusters, two nodes.

How can I share the hard disk in order to make this work for both nodes ?
All documentation I read states that I must have shared hard disk common to
the two servers and that's not clear to me when all I have is that hard
drive on the respective servers.

You can use SCSI disks. Just make sure whatever you get is on the catalog:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/cat...5-23e9cd3ae95b

Cheers,

Rod

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering

"Marlon Brown" <marlon_brown (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Rodney is correct, your SAN or DAS solution must be in the
Windows Catalog for use on a cluster, but it's more than
just getting disks. How you carve them up is just as
important, because, for example, if you create one LUN but
plan to put multiple drives on it, that won't work.

You need to plan your disk layout carefully.

I am sorry for my lack of understanding here, but let's say if I have two
"regular" Compaq ML370, can I just add two more disks on each server and
let's say create a Raid1 and use that as the 'quorum' ? I've seen the list
of devices Rod listed OK, but I still don't understand how to configure the
disks on my servers to be used in a cluster (assume they are part of the MS
HCL).


"Allan Hirt" <anonymous (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

I think you need to read this
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
its a step by step guide on cluster installations

Cheers,

Rod

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering

"Marlon Brown" <marlon_brown (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

(...)
Actually it is what I didn't understand: From the text below I had the
impresson that "external disk storage unit connected to all computers" I
still can't see how my regular SCSI disks existing on both Compaq servers
can be configured as shared disks. It also says that the controller cannot
be the one used by the system drive...


Shared Disk Requirements:
· An HCL-approved external disk storage unit connected to all
computers. This will be used as the clustered shared disk. Some type of a
hardware redundant array of independent disks (RAID) is recommended.

· All shared disks, including the quorum disk, must be physically
attached to a shared bus.

Note: The requirement above does not hold true for Majority Node Set (MNS)
clusters, which are not covered in this guide.

· Shared disks must be on a different controller then the one used
by the system drive.

"Rodney R. Fournier [MVP]" <rod (AT) die (DOT) spam.die.nw-america.com> wrote in
message news:uzdl$BMdEHA.384 (AT) TK2MSFTNGP10 (DOT) phx.gbl...

Marlon, you have all the facts already. You need to buy or use an external
storage, on a different controller.

Cheers,

Rod

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering

"Marlon Brown" <marlon_brown (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Marlon,

I am considering writing an entire book on disk
architecture/design for SQL Server, but I would also
suggest you look at the stuff I have in the existing SQL
2K HA book to understand what goes into making a cluster.

At a minimum, you need (presented at the OS level) for
your cluster:
* 1 quorum disk
* 1 for SQL Server (probably more; I'd say a minimum of
two for data and log, but it will depend on your
requirements)
* 1 for MS DTC (for W2K3 required, and recommended for W2K)

Each of these should reside on different physical LUNs on
an external drive array, whether DAS or SAN (*not* NAS.
The quorum LUN must not be on a disk with any other (many
find it a waste of space, but that's the way it is). Some
vendors allow you to carve up one chunk of disk, and then
do partitions, and that is not really what you should do.

Hope this helps.

Allan

89638f4b4ef7&displaylang=en