Workplace Encounters: Using Volume Mount Points in SQL FCIs

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Workplace Encounters: Using Volume Mount Points in SQL FCIs

Kenneth Igiri

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June 24, 2017 at 5:22 pm

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Workplace Encounters: Using Volume Mount Points in SQL FCIs
Br. Kenneth Igiri
https://kennethigiri.com
All nations come to my light, all kings to the brightness of my rising

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thierry.vandurme Hall of Fame Points: 3340 More actions · Answer 1

I think you should also configure the dependency between the "root" volume (P: in this case) and the mounted one because the mounted volume depends on it. At least that's how we configure(d) it. We have a couple of 2-node clusters each running between 10 to 15 instances ; every instance has 4 disks (1 root and 3 for data, log, tempdb ; these last 3 have a dependency on the root ; btw root is only 100MB since it doesn't store anything)

Kenneth Igiri SSCertifiable Points: 5001 More actions · Answer 2

thierry.vandurme - Monday, June 26, 2017 2:40 AM
I think you should also configure the dependency between the "root" volume (P: in this case) and the mounted one because the mounted volume depends on it. At least that's how we configure(d) it. We have a couple of 2-node clusters each running between 10 to 15 instances ; every instance has 4 disks (1 root and 3 for data, log, tempdb ; these last 3 have a dependency on the root ; btw root is only 100MB since it doesn't store anything)

Thanks a lot. Makes sense.

Br. Kenneth Igiri
https://kennethigiri.com
All nations come to my light, all kings to the brightness of my rising

Alex Gay SSCrazy Points: 2217 More actions · Answer 3

Using mount points to extend the file system seems like a really good idea, until you have to audit the amount of free disk space on your server so that you can do future provisioning. None of the tools in Windows or SQL Server are able to follow the mount points, they just stick to the capacity of the physical drive that the mount points are linked to.
You may have TBs of storage available when the links are followed but if the physical drive is 20% full, that is all that it will report.
Do you have any tools that will handle this, or were you planning on using standard windows/sql tools?

thierry.vandurme Hall of Fame Points: 3340 More actions · Answer 4

Hi Alex,
Spotlight (Quest) or SQL Monitor (Redgate) support mount points.
We use a custom utility. I've written a service that is installed on all SQL servers and that you can connect to from a central server to query all kinds of info, including disk space info (mount points included). It uses Win32 API's.

Alex Gay SSCrazy Points: 2217 More actions · Answer 5

Thanks for the informatino Thierry, I'll add it to my list of reasons why we need a monitoring solution for the next round of purchasing.

Kenneth Igiri SSCertifiable Points: 5001 More actions · Answer 6

Alex Gay - Wednesday, June 28, 2017 8:58 AM
Using mount points to extend the file system seems like a really good idea, until you have to audit the amount of free disk space on your server so that you can do future provisioning. None of the tools in Windows or SQL Server are able to follow the mount points, they just stick to the capacity of the physical drive that the mount points are linked to.
You may have TBs of storage available when the links are followed but if the physical drive is 20% full, that is all that it will report.
Do you have any tools that will handle this, or were you planning on using standard windows/sql tools?

We actualy monitor using SQL scripts scheduled as a daily mail. Each mount point appears as a drive.

Disk Stats

Drive	File System	Volume Label	Total Size (GB)	Free Space (GB)	Free Space (%)
N:\	NTFS	INST1_LOG	349.87	349.64	100.00
M:\	NTFS	INST1_DATA	499.87	449.48	90.00
N:\INST1_M	NTFS	INST1_MISC	249.87	242.64	97.00
M:\INST1_S	NTFS	INST1_SYSD	399.87	397.79	99.00
M:\INST1_M	NTFS	INST1_MISC	399.87	385.72	96.00

Br. Kenneth Igiri
https://kennethigiri.com
All nations come to my light, all kings to the brightness of my rising