Deploy Storage Spaces Direct

Before deployment please make sure to apply requirment and prerequsites

Step 1: Deploy Windows Server

Step 1.1: Install the operating system

Storage Spaces Direct requires Windows Server 2016 Datacenter Edition.
- You can use the Server Core installation option, or Server with Desktop Experience

Step 1.2: Connect to the servers (Remotly)

deploying/managing remotely from a separate management system

Windows Server 2016 with the same updates as the servers it’s managing
Network connectivity to the servers it’s managing
Joined to the same domain or a fully trusted domain
Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) and PowerShell modules for Hyper-V and Failover Clustering.

How to:

use Windows PowerShell to add each Node server to the Trusted Hosts list on your management computer:

Set-Item WSMAN:\Localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value MachineName1 -Force

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName <MachineName1> -Credential LocalHost\Administrator

Step 1.3: Join the domain and add domain accounts.

join the servers to a domain

Add-Computer -NewName "MachineName1" -DomainName "Domain.com" -Credential "Domain\User" -Restart -Force

If your storage administrator account isn’t a member of the Domain Admins group, add your storage administrator account to the local Administrators group on each node
1. ```
Net localgroup Administrators <Domain\Account> /add
```

Step 1.4: Install roles and features

Failover Clustering
Hyper-V
File Server (if you want to host any file shares, such as for a converged deployment)
Data-Center-Bridging (if you’re using RoCEv2 instead of iWARP network adapters)
RSAT-Clustering-PowerShell
Hyper-V-PowerShell

$ServerList = "MachineName1", "MachineName2"
$FeatureList = "Hyper-V", "Failover-Clustering", "Data-Center-Bridging", "RSAT-Clustering-PowerShell", "Hyper-V-PowerShell", "FS-FileServer"

Invoke-Command ($ServerList) {
 Install-WindowsFeature $FeatureList}

Step 2: Configure the network

Storage Spaces Direct requires high-bandwidth, low-latency networking between servers in the cluster.

At least 10 GbE networking is required
and remote direct memory access (RDMA) is recommended.

for Configurations see:

Step 3: Configure Storage Spaces Direct

Step 3.1: Clean drives

Before you enable Storage Spaces Direct, ensure your drives are empty: no old partitions or other data.

Run the following Script

$ServerList = "MachineName1", "MachineName2"

Invoke-Command ($ServerList) {
 Update-StorageProviderCache
 Get-StoragePool | ? IsPrimordial -eq $false | Set-StoragePool -IsReadOnly:$false -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
 Get-StoragePool | ? IsPrimordial -eq $false | Get-VirtualDisk | Remove-VirtualDisk -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
 Get-StoragePool | ? IsPrimordial -eq $false | Remove-StoragePool -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
 Get-PhysicalDisk | Reset-PhysicalDisk -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
 Get-Disk | ? Number -ne $null | ? IsBoot -ne $true | ? IsSystem -ne $true | ? PartitionStyle -ne RAW | % {
 $_ | Set-Disk -isoffline:$false
 $_ | Set-Disk -isreadonly:$false
 $_ | Clear-Disk -RemoveData -RemoveOEM -Confirm:$false
 $_ | Set-Disk -isreadonly:$true
 $_ | Set-Disk -isoffline:$true
 }
 Get-Disk | Where Number -Ne $Null | Where IsBoot -Ne $True | Where IsSystem -Ne $True | Where PartitionStyle -Eq RAW | Group -NoElement -Property FriendlyName
} | Sort -Property PsComputerName, Count

Step 3.2: Validate the cluster

you’ll run the cluster validation tool to ensure that the server nodes are configured correctly to create a cluster using Storage Spaces Direct.

Run the following

Test-Cluster –Node <MachineName1, MachineName2> –Include "Storage Spaces Direct", "Inventory", "Network", "System Configuration"

Step 3.3: Create the cluster

you’ll create a cluster with the nodes that you have validated for cluster creation in the preceding step using the following PowerShell cmdlet.

New-Cluster –Name <ClusterName> –Node <MachineName1,MachineName2> –NoStorage

Its recommended that a file share witness or cloud witness is configured after creating the cluster.
If resolving the cluster isn’t successful, in most cases you can be successful with using the machine name of a node that is an active member of the cluster may be used instead of the cluster name.

Step 3.4: Configure a cluster witness

It is recommended that you configure a witness for the cluster, so that a three or more node system can withstand two nodes failing or being offline.

Step 3.5: Enable Storage Spaces Direct

to Enable S2D, Create a Pool, and Configure Cach, and Tiers , Run the Follwing Command:

Enable-ClusterStorageSpacesDirect –CimSession <ClusterName>

the command will Autometically create:

Create a pool: Creates a single large pool that has a name like “S2D on Cluster1”.
Configures the Storage Spaces Direct caches it enables the fastest as cache devices (read and write in most cases)
Tiers: Creates two tiers as default tiers. One is called “Capacity” and the other called “Performance”.

Step 3.6: Create volumes

Using Failover Cluster Manager
Using Powershell

Using Failover Cluster Manager

There are three major steps:

Step 1: Create virtual disk

New Virtual Disk

In Failover Cluster Manager, navigate to Storage -> Pools.
Select New Virtual Disk from the Actions pane on the right, or right-click the pool and select New Virtual Disk.
Select the storage pool and click OK. The New Virtual Disk Wizard (Storage Spaces Direct) will open.
Use the wizard to name the virtual disk and specify its size.
Review your selections and click Create.
Be sure to check the box marked Create a volume when this wizard closes before closing.

Step 2: Create volume

The New Volume Wizard will open.

Select the virtual disk you just created and click Next.
Specify the volume’s size (default: the same size as the virtual disk) and click Next.
Assign the volume to a drive letter or choose Don’t assign to a drive letter and click Next.
Specify the filesystem to use, leave the allocation unit size as Default, name the volume, and click Next.
Review your selections and click Create, then Close.

Step 3: Add to cluster shared volumes

Add to Cluster Shared Volumes

In Failover Cluster Manager, navigate to Storage -> Disks.
Select the virtual disk you just created and select Add to Cluster Shared Volumes from the Actions pane on the right, or right-click the virtual disk and select Add to Cluster Shared Volumes.

You’re done! Repeat as needed to create more than one volume.

using powershell

The New-Volume cmdlet has four parameters you’ll always need to provide:

FriendlyName: Any string you want, for example “Volume1”
FileSystem: Either CSVFS_ReFS (recommended) or CSVFS_NTFS
StoragePoolFriendlyName: The name of your storage pool, for example “S2D on ClusterName”
Size: The size of the volume, for example “10TB”
ResiliencySettingName: Either Mirror or Parity

With 2 or 3 servers

New-Volume -FriendlyName "Volume1" -FileSystem CSVFS_ReFS -StoragePoolFriendlyName S2D* -Size 1TB

With 4+ servers

New-Volume -FriendlyName "Volume2" -FileSystem CSVFS_ReFS -StoragePoolFriendlyName S2D* -Size 1TB -ResiliencySettingName Mirror

Using storage tiers

Get-StorageTier | Select FriendlyName, ResiliencySettingName, PhysicalDiskRedundancy

New-Volume -FriendlyName "Volume4" -FileSystem CSVFS_ReFS -StoragePoolFriendlyName S2D* -StorageTierFriendlyNames Performance, Capacity -StorageTierSizes 300GB, 700GB

Step 3.7: Optionally enable the CSV cache

To set the size of the CSV cache, open a PowerShell session on the management system with an account that has administrator permissions on the storage cluster

$ClusterName = "StorageSpacesDirect1" 

$CSVCacheSize = 2048 

(Get-Cluster $ClusterName).BlockCacheSize = $CSVCacheSize 

$CSVCurrentCacheSize = (Get-Cluster $ClusterName).BlockCacheSize

Step 3.8: Deploy virtual machines for hyper-converged deployment

The virtual machine’s files should be stored on the systems CSV namespace (example: c:\ClusterStorage\Volume1) just like clustered VMs on failover clusters.

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