MSA1000/4314r volume

[Brady MacDonald]

I am setting up a Win2k3 cluster consisting of two DL580's attached to an MSA1000. The MSA1000 has a single 4314r attached to it. In the MSA1000 are 2 36GB drives set up in an array (Array A) with its own volume which will be used as the quorom for the cluster. The rest of the drives in the MSA1000 and 4314r are 146GB drives. The application that will be on the cluster needs to have one volume set up for file server space and can not be changed to point to multiple volumes for its data (don't ask, I am not the developer). The current data needs are 1.2TB with needs to grow beyond this in the near future. My intention was to create one large volume spanning the 12 drives in the MSA1000 and the 14 drives in the 4314r to give me in the neighborhood ~3.4TB of usable drive space for the application. When I open ACU, I see all of the drives. When I create a new array, I show 3640360MB of unused space in the new array. When I create a new volume, the maximum size I can create is 2097151MB (I want to use ADG especially with a volume this size). Once I create the volume, I then show 1368445MB of usable drive space left in the array. I can then create another volume out of this drive space if I wanted.

Here is my problem. I can't use dynamic disks within Win2k3 with MSCS. I can only create up to a ~2TB volume. I have not found any documentation that states a ~2TB volume is the maximum allowed.

The interesting thing here is when I see this new 2TB volume within Win2k3 "Disk Management" utility and then go to format it, all of the 146GB drives in the MSA1000 and 4314r light up.

What are my options at this point?

[Trevor Roddam_1]

Not many
Sorry to say.

Windows will only support up to 2TB in a single Disk. 16TB in a single file and 256TB in a single volume.
To get more than 2TB in a drive letter you will need to span multiple disks - or LUNs from the MSA.

Also the MSA will only support 2TB in a LUN.
This doesn't explain why you're not able to configure a 2TB LUN for the OS to mount.

When searching the MS web site look for "maximum NTFS disk" in the Win2K3 32bit section.
I would highly recommend not trying what you're doing on one disk. Many 1TB disks from the MSA striped to form larger volumes is the way to go.
As for Clustering..... I am not a windows Guru.

I would highly recommend using a second 4314 and have the drives spread over two SCSI channels.


My two cents.
Trevor.

[Bob_Vance]

>The interesting thing here is when I see this
>new 2TB volume within Win2k3 "Disk
>Management" utility and then go to format it,
>all of the 146GB drives in the MSA1000 and
>4314r light up.

This is to be expected.
When you create a LUN, the data is striped across *all* disks in the disk group ("array", in MSA terms), regardless of the RAID level, whether 0,1,5, or 5ADG.

bv