Windows Server 2012 – About Clustered Storage Spaces Issue

In this post I’ll examine a specific issue in Storage Spaces while using with Enclosure awareness.

Storage Space Setup with Enclosure awareness:

Note: There are only 2 enclosures for the disks.

The Scenario for the Issue:

1. Create Storage Pool in a cluster.

2. Use IsEnclosureAware flag to enable the Storage Space enclosure to be more resilient.

3. Connection to Storage Pool fails when either one of the Enclosures (e.g., Enclosure 2 here) is switched off.

The Cause for the Issue:

With Windows Server 2012, a majority of drives need to be available for the pool to be online. In a case where you have two enclosures and an equal amount of drives in each, a majority of drives will not be online if one enclosure is going offline.

ASolution for the Issue:

Using three enclosures will address this since a majority of drives will be online even in the event an enclosure goes offline.

References:

· Enclosure Model Used: https://www.aicipc.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ref=XJ3000-2242S

· SAS Controller Model: https://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/LSISAS3801E.aspx