A Microsoft failover cluster uses a single physical disk resource and a basic disk volume resource for a quorum. If the physical disk fails, the quorum resource fails and the cluster becomes unusable. To avoid this failure, you must use a dynamic disk group resource.
Unlike a physical disk resource that contains a single disk, a dynamic disk group resource can contain multiple disks. A dynamic disk group resource provides a high level of redundancy by allowing the mirroring of disks.
With Storage Foundation for Windows (SFW) a Microsoft failover cluster can use dynamic disks as a quorum disk resource. This lets you make your cluster quorum highly available by using host-based mirroring.
To use SFW to configure a Microsoft failover cluster quorum, you must perform the following tasks:
- Configure a Microsoft failover cluster.
- Install SFW.
- Create a cluster dynamic disk group with a volume created on it. This disk group should be separate from the disk group that you create for the application data.
- Use the Microsoft Failover Cluster Manager to:
- Add the clustered disk group as a resource to the cluster.
- Configure cluster quorum settings.
For a quick reference guide to configure a dynamic quorum resource, see:
Configuring high availability for Microsoft failover cluster quorum
Storage Foundation for Windows documentation for other releases and platforms can be found on the SORT website.
