Given that it's server 2012 and physical I'd setup a failover fileshare and roll with that. Seems quickest and easiest way to get to where you want to go. However with those extra roles on the server I'm not sure how that'd work, we do dedicated boxes for those other items.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kish n Kepi Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 3:34 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] Windows File Server High-Availability Sean, thanks for your input. I’m not quite sure what your recommendation is, though. Also, does anyone else have approaches not covered yet? Comments to pro or con ? KNK From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sean Martin Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 8:14 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] Windows File Server High-Availability Too bad, the Essentials Plus package would allow you to create a vSphere HA cluster. That would probably provide the HA you were looking for, as long as 100% uptime wasn't a requirement. To support clustering in a virtual environment you'd need to present the shared disks as RDMs (Raw Device Mappings). This is typically done using iSCSI with a software initiator on the guest OS. That would require your SAN support iSCSI. Can also be accomplished using HBAs on the host. There is a ton of information out there on how to setup a virtual Windows Cluster, as well as a lot of Pros/Cons that should be reviewed. I'm not sure I agree with your comments regarding the difficulty in resizing a virtual disk, or it being any more difficult to move. Even without features like storage vMotion, a VMDK is typically more portable than a LUN on most storage platforms. On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 8:54 AM, Kish n Kepi <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: VMware vCenter/vSphere Essentials package (meaning 3 hosts, software upgrades but no support) From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Sean Martin Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 7:52 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] Windows File Server High-Availability Which virtualization product are you using? - Sean On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 8:41 AM, Kish n Kepi <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hello All, My boss requested that I make our File Server highly available. We currently have a physical server running Windows 2012, with shares published using DFS. The server has large quantities of DAS, some of which are shared primarily for IT dept use, and is connected to an 8 TB SAN which has the main, most used, share. I know that I can go out and purchase another physical file server and connect it to the same SAN LUN and finish the requirement. Besides acting as a file server, this server also serves WSUS and WDS. However, I’m thinking that it may make more sense to create 2 VMs on 2 existing separate physical hosts and create a cluster . The question is how I’d attach the SAN LUN to the virtual cluster. Would I need to create a virtual disk on the SAN, attach it to the cluster and copy the contents of the shares into that virtual disk? The downside of a virtual disk is that once created, it’s difficult to resize if necessary, and unwieldy to copy/move to a new SAN that we will certainly need to get eventually. Any input for either scenario welcome, and I certainly will embrance any new ideas of how to accomplish this task. Kish N Kepi
