Cluster backup drives

Question

Cluster backup drives

jpettigrew

SSC Enthusiast

Points: 195
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July 25, 2013 at 10:24 am

#280957

I cannot see the main backup drive in SQL cluster when attempting to do a restore. The backups for the cluster is stored on this drive. I only see three of the four SAN mapped drives (which are desiegnated as reserve drive in disk manager). Is there somewhere in SSMS I add the drive I cannot see or is this something to do with SAN?
Thanks in advance.

James Pettigrew
Systems Manager

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Elliott Whitlow SSC Guru Points: 102296 More actions · Answer 1

jpettigrew (7/25/2013)
I cannot see the main backup drive in SQL cluster when attempting to do a restore. The backups for the cluster is stored on this drive. I only see three of the four SAN mapped drives (which are desiegnated as reserve drive in disk manager). Is there somewhere in SSMS I add the drive I cannot see or is this something to do with SAN?

If they are designated Reserved then you are on a node where the SQL is NOT running. They would be online if you were on the same node.

Is the backup drive a clustered drive or is it "local" to a node, I think you need to give some additional detail.

CEWII

jpettigrew SSC Enthusiast Points: 195 More actions · Answer 2

Can you provide reasons why I would not see the drive the backups are backed up to?

Thanks in advance

James Pettigrew
Systems Manager

Elliott Whitlow SSC Guru Points: 102296 More actions · Answer 3

Please answer the question I posed.

SQL will show local drives on the node it is on I believe. I believe it will not show drives that are in another resource group even if that resource group in currently owned by that node. It will show disks that are in the resource group with SQL.

CEWII

sql-lover SSCoach Points: 18530 More actions · Answer 4

jpettigrew (7/25/2013)
I cannot see the main backup drive in SQL cluster when attempting to do a restore. The backups for the cluster is stored on this drive. I only see three of the four SAN mapped drives (which are desiegnated as reserve drive in disk manager). Is there somewhere in SSMS I add the drive I cannot see or is this something to do with SAN?
Thanks in advance.

If the backup drive or folder is inside the SAN, you will only see it from the active node. Unless, like Elliot said, that resource was moved to the other node.

On a Windows Cluster, only one node can see a given SAN's resource. So again, if your backup folder resides on the SAN and you are connected to the passive node, you won't be able to see it from there. This is by design on a SQL failover instance, and in order to allow only one server (active instance) to read and write to the database at a time, avoiding data corruption.

Hope that helps.

durai nagarajan SSCoach Points: 15775 More actions · Answer 5

jpettigrew (7/25/2013)
I cannot see the main backup drive in SQL cluster when attempting to do a restore. The backups for the cluster is stored on this drive. I only see three of the four SAN mapped drives (which are desiegnated as reserve drive in disk manager). Is there somewhere in SSMS I add the drive I cannot see or is this something to do with SAN?
Thanks in advance.

How are you connecting by Cluster ip or name (or) node (ip or name)?

Regards
Durai Nagarajan

jpettigrew SSC Enthusiast Points: 195 More actions · Answer 6

These are all good questions that I am not able to answer right now but something for me to find out. My company currently colocate the cluster in a data center where the setup was done by the company providing the equipment and space. These are questions I will ask.

Thanks in advance.

James Pettigrew
Systems Manager

adb2303 SSCertifiable Points: 7588 More actions · Answer 7

in the failover cluster manager, check that the cluster disk for your backup drive is a dependency of the sql server resource

SQLisAwe5oMe SSChampion Points: 14047 More actions · Answer 8

jpettigrew (7/25/2013)
I cannot see the main backup drive in SQL cluster when attempting to do a restore. The backups for the cluster is stored on this drive. I only see three of the four SAN mapped drives (which are desiegnated as reserve drive in disk manager). Is there somewhere in SSMS I add the drive I cannot see or is this something to do with SAN?
Thanks in advance.

If the backup drive you are looking at is part of the shared disk, then it will not show up on Passive Node....it will only show on the active node....

SueTons.

Regards,
SQLisAwe5oMe.