How to add storage to Clustered Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2012

This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Failover Clustering articles.

First published on MSDN on Apr 06, 2012

In Windows Server 2012 Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) has been more tightly integrated into the Failover Clustering feature. The process for a cluster Physical Disk Resource (PDR) to be enabled for CSV has been simplified and streamlined. In this blog, I will show you the new experience of adding storage from the Available Storage pool of your cluster to Clustered Shared Volumes. The Available Storage pool contains disks that have been added to your cluster but not assigned to a specific use in your cluster.


Failover Cluster Manager


To add storage to Clustered Shared Volumes follow these steps:


1)      Launch the Failover Cluster Manager (CluAdmin.msc)


2)      Select the Storage node


3)      Select the Disks that you want to add to Clustered Shared Volumes.


Note:  A great new Failover Cluster Manager feature in Windows Server 2012 is support for multi-select and the ability to enable CSV across a number of disks all at once!


4)      Right click on your selection and choose the Add to Cluster Shared Volumes option.




5)      Your disks are now added to Clustered Shared Volumes! Yes, it is that easy in Windows Server 2012!




CSV provides a single consistent file name space. Files have the same name and path when viewed from any node in the cluster. CSV volumes are exposed as directories and subdirectories under the “ ClusterStorage ” root directory: C:\ClusterStorage\VolumeX\<root>



CSV enabled volumes now appear as “CSVFS”. CSVFS is the NTFS file system under the covers and volumes are still formatted with the NTFS file system. However, this change enables applications to be aware that they are running on CSV and allows them to ensure compatibility.





PowerShell


You can also use the Failover Clustering Windows PowerShell® cmdlet, Add-ClusterSharedVolume , to add storage to Clustered Shared Volumes. This cmdlet accepts disks from the Available Storage pool.




Note:  Another awesome Windows Server 2012 Failover Clustering PowerShell® feature is the support for Wildcard characters! The screenshot above shows you an example of how you can use wildcards to select multiple PDRs to add to CSV at once.



Thanks!


Subhasish Bhattacharya
Program Manager
Clustering & High Availability
Microsoft

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