MSA 500 shared volume

[Matthew Welby]

Can I share a single volume on the MSA500 between two servers? i.e. both servers would be able to access the same data on the same drive on the MSA500.

Thanks!

[Uwe Zessin]

Yes, provided that you have an operating system or an additional software product for your operating system that implements a shared file system.

[Warren Beauchamp]

I'm using Win2000 Advanced server. Currently it's set up to have the drive be accessible to only one server at a time. What software would I use to allow the same drive and data to be accessible by both servers at the same time? HP's Smart Array Multipath software? Some 3rd party software?

Thanks!

[Warren Beauchamp]

BTW, the first time I posted here I showed up as "Matthew Welby". I'm not sure why...

[Stephen Kebbell]

Hi,

Smart Array Multipath is only for multiple paths from a server to a storage system so that if one path fails, I/O continues on the other path. So that's not what you need.

There is a product called polyserve matrix server (I've seen it mentioned in the forums here a few times) which might meet your requirements.
http://www.polyserve.com/products_mswindows.php

There's also some info on HP's website:
http://h71019.www7.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/cache/70994-0-0-0-121.aspx

Normal Clustering (e.g. MSCS under Windows 2000 Advanced Server) would allow 2 clustered servers to see the volume, but both cannot concurrently access the file system.

Regards,
Stephen