Discovering and Partitioning Physical Disks
CAUTION: Before beginning, review Preparing Physical Disks for Management for information about partitioning disks.
WARNING: For Proxy Volumes, refer to Preparing Disks to be Proxied Volumes for instructions. This topic does not apply.
If you are using the Network Managed Volumes (NMV) option, this topic does not apply. Do NOT partition the disks. NMVs can ONLY be created from unpartitioned disks.
This topic provides instructions, using native Windows disk management utilities on the storage server, to prepare partition-based physical disks for storage management. The partitions created will later be transformed into virtual volumes by the SANsymphony software and then mapped to application servers for use by local applications. The virtual volumes created will be static (a fixed size) and are based on the size of the partition. Create the partitions in sizes that meet your application server storage needs. The partitions you create may be normal or fault-tolerant partitions.
Adding storage resources does not affect the operation of the current configuration, the storage server does not have to be stopped to apply the changes.
WARNING: IMPORTANT: In Windows Server 2008, partitions may be deleted even if managed by SANsymphony software. If deleting partitions in Windows Disk Management, heed all warnings and ensure partitions are NOT being managed by SANsymphony software before deleting them!
Follow these steps to prepare your physical disks for use:
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In Windows Server Manager, open Diagnostics>Device Manager.
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Select Disk Drives, and choose Scan for Hardware Changes from the context menu. Ensure that all disks connected to the storage server are discovered.
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In Windows Server Manager, open Storage>Disk Management to display all visible disks. Ensure all disks for management are online and initialized. Initialization adds signatures to the disks; a requirement of SANsymphony software in order to manage them. The Windows disks may be basic or dynamic.
WARNING: Do not use any unallocated space that may be available on the boot disk with SANsymphony software.
In the example below, Disks 1 and 2 are candidates for SANsymphony storage management, but need partitions.
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Any unallocated physical disks may be broken down into smaller logical drives. SANsymphony software supports up to a maximum of 256 partitions or volumes on a single disk. New volumes can be simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, or RAID-5. Using the New Volume wizards in Disk Management on unallocated disks, create unformatted partitions without drive letters. Select the required type of volume and follow the instructions to create the required number and size of partitions on each disk. (If you need additional information or instructions on how to use Disk Management or partition support for Windows, please refer to Microsoft Windows documentation.)
CAUTION: Remember: Do not format the partitions and do not assign drive letters to the partitions.
In the example below, Disks 1 and 2 have been partitioned and are ready to be managed by SANsymphony software.
Now that your disks have been discovered and partitioned in Disk Management, refer to Placing Partitioned Disks Under Control of SANsymphony.