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hyper-v cluster storage

Ive been reading up abouy setting up a cluster environment to host my virtual machines. Im using Windows Hyper-V Server in a core-only installation. My issue is everything i read says that the VMs have to be hosted on shared storage (such as a san or network share), however is it possible to put the VMs on a share and replicate the data to another node? My thoughts behind this is if NodeA fails the NodeB takes over completly including the storage, kind of a mirrored setup for backup. In the end of the day i would like to store a node off-site and bring up if nodeA and nodeB fail.

Thanks in advance

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Cliff Galiher

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Cliff Galiher

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Philip Elder

A simple setup, called an asymmetric cluster, would be as follows:
+ (2) Nodes
++ Dual E5
++ 64GB to 256GB of ECC or more if need be
++ Simple RAID 1 for host OS
++ Dual Intel i350T4 quad-port Gigabit
++ Dual 6Gb SAS HBAs

For storage:
+ DataON DNS-1640 2U 24 drive JBOD
++ OR
+ DataON DNS-1660 4U 60 drive JBOD

With the above pair of servers and SAS based Direct Attached Storage (DAS) you get 96Gb of aggregate throughput with virtually no latency. It is a much simpler setup than using iSCSI.

Storage arbitration is provided for by Storage Spaces so it's essentially built right in.

We have this setup in production for small (15 seats) to medium (80 seats) clients with server configurations being a bit more beefy units.