One of the key advantages of using SFW with Microsoft clustering is the ability to create a mirrored quorum resource that adds fault tolerance to the quorum and protects the cluster. Microsoft clustering uses the quorum architecture, where the cluster database resides in the quorum resource. The quorum resource maintains the cluster database and critical recovery information in a recovery log.

Adding SFW to the configuration protects the quorum disk from being a single point of failure in the cluster because SFW provides dynamic volumes and software mirroring of the quorum device. If the quorum resource fails, the mirror takes over for the resource.

Using SFW also offers other advantages over using Microsoft clustering alone. SFW lets you add fault tolerance to your data volumes. Mirroring of log volumes is recommended, and a mirrored striped RAID layout is recommended for your data volumes. SFW also offers multiple disk groups, multiple mirrors, capacity management and Automatic Volume Growth, online storage migration, performance tuning, hot relocation, dirty region logging, RAID-5 logging, Dynamic Multi-Pathing, and enhanced snapshot capabilities with FlashSnap.