Hardware options for highly available Windows Server 2012 systems using shared, directly-attached storage

Highly available Windows Server 2012 systems using shared, directly-attached storage can be built using either Storage Spaces or a validated clustered RAID controller.

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Option 1 ? Storage Spaces

You can build a highly available shared SAS system today using Storage Spaces.

Storage Spaces works well in a standalone PC, but it is also capable of working in a Windows Server Failover Clustering environment.?

For implementing Clustered Storage Spaces, you will need the following Windows Server 2012 certified hardware:

• Any SAS Host Bus Adapter or HBA (as long as it?s SAS and not a RAID controller, you should be fine)
• SAS JBODs or disk enclosures (listed under the ?Storage Spaces? category on the Server catalog)
• SAS disks (there?s a wide variety of those, including capacity HDDs, performance HDDs and SSDs)

You can find instructions on how to configure a Clustered Storage Space in Windows Server 2012 at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/06/02/10314262.aspx.

A good overview of Storage Spaces and its capabilities can be found at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/15198.storage-spaces-overview.aspx

There's also an excellent presentation from TechEd that covers Storage Spaces at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/WSV315

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Option 2 ? Clustered RAID Controllers

The second option is to build a highly available shared storage system using RAID Controllers that are designed to work in a Windows Server Failover Cluster configuration.

The main distinction between these RAID controllers and the ones we used before is that they work in sets (typically a pair) and coordinate their actions against the shared disks.

Here are some examples:

• The HP StoreEasy 5000 cluster-in-a-box uses Clustered RAID controllers?that HP sources and certifies. You can find details at the HP StoreEasy product page.
• LSI is working on a Clustered RAID controller with Windows Server 2012 support. This new line of SAS RAID Controllers is scheduled for later this year. You can get details?on?availability dates from LSI.

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Both options work great for all kinds of Windows Server 2012 Clusters, including Hyper-V Clusters, SQL Server Clusters, Classic File Server Clusters and Scale-Out File Servers.

You can learn more about these solutions in this TechEd presentation: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Europe/2012/WSV310

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2013/02/23/hardware-options-for-highly-available-windows-server-2012-systems-using-shared-directly-attached-storage.aspx

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