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What is the procedure for adding disks in a Microsoft S2D cluster? RRS feed

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    Hi,

    i have a hyperv cluster implemented with dell hardware and melanox rdma controllers.

    We have a pool of SAS disks and another pool of SSD disks where we store all virtual machines on both.

    We bought new disks to add to the SAS pool and the SSD.

    The physical installation procedure is simple on the hardware as there is no RAID configuration at the controller level, but at the operating system level, right?

    Doubts:

    1 - After physically adding the disks (4x SAS and 2xSSD) on each server node they will be presented in the operating system. Being a hotplug server we can do that with the server on, right? Or do we need to turn them off for windows to recognize?

    2 - Is the procedure for including disks in the pool difficult? Is there a limitation on the number of discs? Is there downtime?

    3 - Is there a risk of corrupting data?

    Thank you.
    Tuesday, July 7, 2020 4:08 AM

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    Hi,

    1 - After physically adding the disks (4x SAS and 2xSSD) on each server node they will be presented in the operating system. Being a hotplug server we can do that with the server on, right? Or do we need to turn them off for windows to recognize?

    Hot-plug drives can simply be plugged in (plug and play) without any issues, no need to turn the servers off.

    2 - Is the procedure for including disks in the pool difficult? Is there a limitation on the number of discs? Is there downtime?

    No it is rather easy, and it doesn't require downtime.

    3 - Is there a risk of corrupting data?

    There shouldn't be any risk of corruption when adding new disks.

    For adding new drives, please refer to the following documentation:
    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-spaces/add-nodes#adding-drives

    Best regards,
    Leon

    Blog: https://thesystemcenterblog.com LinkedIn:

    Tuesday, July 7, 2020 9:45 AM
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    Hi,

    1 - After physically adding the disks (4x SAS and 2xSSD) on each server node they will be presented in the operating system. Being a hotplug server we can do that with the server on, right? Or do we need to turn them off for windows to recognize?

    Hot-plug drives can simply be plugged in (plug and play) without any issues, no need to turn the servers off.

    2 - Is the procedure for including disks in the pool difficult? Is there a limitation on the number of discs? Is there downtime?

    No it is rather easy, and it doesn't require downtime.

    3 - Is there a risk of corrupting data?

    There shouldn't be any risk of corruption when adding new disks.

    For adding new drives, please refer to the following documentation:
    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-spaces/add-nodes#adding-drives

    Best regards,
    Leon

    Blog: https://thesystemcenterblog.com LinkedIn:

    Hi,

    I read that before I need to be careful to add, evaluate the free and occupied space.

    I also read that I need to follow the pool rebuild process.

    In short I just add the disks on the server (hotplug) they will show in the disk manager of windows on each existing node.

    Do I need to format the disks? Or just start them up as GPT?

    Having done that, will S2D carry out the entire pool expansion process? I can see how is this rebuild that after the inclusion of the discs?

    Thank you.
    Tuesday, July 7, 2020 4:14 PM
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    You can format if you want, it's not mandatory but I usually do it, no need to create any partition, just let the PowerShell cmdlets do their job.

    S2D will perform the storage pool expansion and rebuild it, you can follow up with the Get-StorageJob PowerShell cmdlet.

    Blog: https://thesystemcenterblog.com LinkedIn:

    Tuesday, July 7, 2020 4:38 PM
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    Hi Sansrix,

    I am writing to check if the above reply could be of help? If yes, please mark useful reply as answer, if you have any other concerns or questions, please feel free to feedback.

    Best Regards,

    Anne

    Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
    If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact tnmff@microsoft.com.

    Thursday, July 23, 2020 2:20 AM