Adding the clustered disk group as a resource to the Failover Cluster


Adding the clustered disk group as a resource to the Failover Cluster
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After you create a clustered disk group, a clustered disk group resource is automatically added to the Failover Cluster. You need to manually add this resource if you plan to remove the automatically added resource and then add it later.

The automatically added resource is brought online by default. The resource name corresponds to the clustered disk group name and is not enabled for Fast Failover by default.

The following steps describe how to add a Storage Foundation clustered disk group as a resource to the Failover Cluster.

To add the clustered disk group as a resource to the Failover Cluster

From the Start menu (the Start screen on Windows 2012 operating systems), click Administrative Tools.
To launch the Failover Cluster Manager snap-in, click Failover Cluster Manager.
Expand the cluster from the tree view in the left pane to display Roles.
Right-click Roles, and then select Create Empty Role.
The new role is created under the Roles pane in the center.
Right-click the role that you created, and then select Properties.
The New Role Properties window appears.
Enter a name for the new role in the Name field.
Select the desired cluster nodes and priority, and then click OK to continue.
To add a Volume Manager Disk Group (VMDg) resource, right-click the role, and then select Add Resource > More Resources > Volume Manager Disk Group.
In the pane below the Roles pane, click the Resources tab to see information about the new VMDg resource.
In the pane below the Roles pane, click the Resources tab, right-click New Volume Manager Disk Group, and then select Properties.
The New Volume Manager Disk Group Properties window appears.
On the General tab, enter a name for this new resource in the Name field.

On the Properties tab, view and modify the private properties of this resource, and then click OK to continue.

The table in the properties panel gives the following details:

Name	Value
DiskRunChkDsk	Specify whether SFW should perform a file system check on the disks each time the cluster resource is brought online. If enabled, SFW automatically cleans the file system by running the chkdsk /x /f command on the volume that is brought online, if dirty bit is set on that volume. The value 1 (enabled) indicates that SFW performs the file system check and the value 0 (disabled) indicates that it does not. The default is 0 (disabled).
FastFailover	Specify whether the VMDg resource should be enabled for fast failover. Specify "true" for enabling it and "false" for disabling it. The default value is "true".
DiskGroupName	Specify the name of the SFW cluster disk group that you want to configure as a cluster resource.

Note:

A VMDg resource is not marked as online until all volumes in it are verified using chkdsk utility, if the value is set to 1.

The Summary tab displays the new cluster resource. The cluster resource's status should be online. If it's not, then right-click it, and then select Bring Online to bring the resource online.
In the tree-view of Failover Cluster Manager, expand the Storage node to review the attributes of the new cluster resource.

Notes:

SFW uses the Windows temporary folder (typically C:\Windows\temp) to store the output of the chkdsk command.

If there is not enough disk space or if the logged-on user does not have write access to the temporary directory, the Volume Manager Disk Group (VMDg) resource may fail due to a chkdsk error.

The cluster log shows the following message:

ERR [RES] Volume Manager Disk Group <FORCHKDSK>: RunChkDsk: Failed to get the temporary file.

You need to run chkdsk manually to bring the resource online.
chkdsk fails to execute on a disk group under replication and does not come online.

If chkdsk is run on a volume that is under replication, cluster logs display the following error message:

Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected.

In such a scenario, replication locks the volume, as a result chkdsk cannot be executed, and the VMDg resource is marked as failed because chkdsk has failed.

Therefore, the VMDg does not come online.

Do not enable chkdsk on a disk group that is under replication.

Remove a disk group out of replication and run chkdsk manually.
If the VMDg resource has a dirty volume, then Windows shows a pop-up while the volume mounts. Set the chkdsk property of the VMDg resource under Microsoft Failover Clustering to '1' to perform automatic verification of that volume.