RAID accross multiple targets

[bpoe]

Is it possible to create some sort of a RAID 1 set across multiple targets on different machines? The reason that I'm asking is I'm wanting to create a 2 node cluster without a physically shared disk and without a third machine hosting the iSCSI shared disk.

It would look something like this:
ServerNode1 will host a target device (SPTI or image file, doesn't really matter).
ServerNode2 will also host a target device.

The 2 target devices would be combined as a RAID 1 volume and used as a quorum device. If one node fails, it would be like one disk in a RAID set failing, but the cluster would stay online. When the other node came back online, the RAID set could be rebuilt and all would be back to normal.

Is this possible?

[Tim]

Have a look at this thread : http://www.starwindsoftware.com/forums/ ... .php?t=552

[Val (staff)]

Is it possible to create some sort of a RAID 1 set across multiple targets on different machines? The reason that I'm asking is I'm wanting to create a 2 node cluster without a physically shared disk and without a third machine hosting the iSCSI shared disk.

It would look something like this:
ServerNode1 will host a target device (SPTI or image file, doesn't really matter).
ServerNode2 will also host a target device.

The 2 target devices would be combined as a RAID 1 volume and used as a quorum device. If one node fails, it would be like one disk in a RAID set failing, but the cluster would stay online. When the other node came back online, the RAID set could be rebuilt and all would be back to normal.

Is this possible?

Hi,

I doubt it's possible to implement the scheme.

We are working on the remote Mirror and replication plugin for StarWind. But ever using it a cluster can't be implemented without external shared storage.
It's possible to use a separate storage server with StarWind to keep the quorum disk for the cluster. And the quorum disk can be implemented as a RAID-1 device using the Mirror plug-in...

[bpoe]

OK, lets forget about the cluster part then. Lets just say that I want to setup RAID 1 using 2 targets, each hosted by a different machine. It that possible?

[Val (staff)]

OK, lets forget about the cluster part then. Lets just say that I want to setup RAID 1 using 2 targets, each hosted by a different machine. It that possible?

The mode is not released yet.
We are working on the RAID-1 plug-in to make it possible to have one or both mirrors of a volume as remote targets.

[nonarKitten]

How does this differ from using software RAID-1 in Windows from a performance perspective? I would think that "true" RAID-1 would offer better performance than replication since clustering isn't possible with NTFS, thus making the iSCSI mirrors unavailable to the server.

[Val (staff)]

OK, lets forget about the cluster part then. Lets just say that I want to setup RAID 1 using 2 targets, each hosted by a different machine. It that possible?

This is possible with the Mirror plug-in in StarWind v3.2.

[Val (staff)]

How does this differ from using software RAID-1 in Windows from a performance perspective? I would think that "true" RAID-1 would offer better performance than replication since clustering isn't possible with NTFS, thus making the iSCSI mirrors unavailable to the server.

Hi,

The main reason for using RAID-1 is reliability, performance is the next parameter to look at.

Also the Mirror plugin provides a usual iSCSI target for clients. They are unaware that the target is a distributed RAID-1.
So MSCS can use the iSCSI target as the quorum disk or a shared disk.
This is not supported for local RAIDs.

MSCS does support NTFS AFAIK. What is the problem with it?