SQL Server Cluster : which groups should hold the Physical disk ?

  • Dear all,

    I am going to install SQL Server Cluster, I only have 2 Physical Disk cluster resouces : Q drive - the quorum, R drive - I will install SQL Server cluster onto it.

    I have 3 cluster groups :

    1. Cluster Group

    2. MSDTC Group

    3. SQL Cluster Group

    But I want to know which cluster group should hold the "Physical Disk" resource.

    If "MSDTC Group" holds it, that means the "SQL Cluster" Group cannot hold the Physical Disk, will the SQL Cluster installation still succeed ?

    If I install SQL Cluster into the "MSDTC Group", it is not what Microsoft recommended.

    So what should I do ?

  • Your Quorum disk should belong to the Cluster group.

    I'd then put any physical drives that are you are going to use for SQL in the SQL Cluster group. You also need to ensure that the SQL Server Resource has the physical disk as a dependancy otherwise you can't use it for SQL data/log files.

    HTH

    Adam

  • Yes, I have added the Q drive - Quorum to the Cluster group.

    However, other than Q drive, I only has the R drive in SAN.

    When I setup the "MSDTC Group", Microsoft said we have to add a Physical Disk to it, thus, I had to add my R drive to this group.

    Thus, when I setup the "SQL Cluster" Group, I will have no more physical disk.

    What can I do ?

    1. Can I give up the "SQL Cluster" group and install SQL Server Cluster into the "MSDTC Group" ?

    2. Or ignore this fact, just go ahead to install SQL Server Cluster, but I am not sure whether the SQL installation will succeed eventually.

    Can you give me any suggestions ? Thanks a lot.

  • I think the question here is picking the lesser of two evils. With the disk configuration you have I think you have two choices.

    1) Install MSDTC and SQL into the same Cluster resource group on the same disk resource

    2) Install MSDTC and the Quorum onto the same resource group on the same disk resource

    Personally, I'd go with option 2 and found the following snippet on blogs.msdn

    Should MSDTC be in its own resource group?

    To help ensure availability between multiple clustered applications, Microsoft highly recommends that the MS DTC have its own resource group and resources. If MS DTC cannot be configured to have its own resource group, the recommended alternate choice is to use the Cluster group and Quorum drive.

    LINK

    Hope that helps

    Adam

  • Dear Adam,

    Thanks a lot.

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