Cluster Migrations Involving New Storage: Mount Points

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

This topic describes considerations for mount points in a migration from a server cluster running Windows Server 2003 to a failover cluster running Windows Server 2008 where you use new storage for the migrated cluster. This is in contrast with a scenario where you use the same storage before and after migration.

The Migrate a Cluster wizard does not migrate mount point information (information about drives that do not use drive letters but instead are mounted in a folder on another drive). However, it can migrate Physical Disk Resource settings to and from disks that use mount points. The wizard also does not configure the necessary dependency between the resources for mounted disks and the resource for a host disk (the disk on which the other disks are mounted). You must configure the dependency after the wizard finishes running.

In new storage that is part of your cluster migration, you have some flexibility for choosing when to create the mount points themselves: either before or after you run the Migrate a Cluster wizard (however, see Cluster Migrations Involving New Storage: Drive Letters and Labels about when to assign the drive letter for the disk that hosts the mounted disks). After you run the Migrate a Cluster wizard, several more steps are needed. If you have not already copied the data to the new storage and created the mount points, you must do that. Then make any necessary changes to disk letters for disks in new storage. Finally, configure disk dependencies in Failover Cluster Management.

In this context, a useful way to keep track of disks in new storage is to give them labels that indicate your intended mount point configuration. For example, in the new storage, when you are mounting a new disk in a folder called \Mount1-1 on another disk, you can also label the mounted disk as Mount1-1. (This assumes that the label Mount1-1 is not already in use in the old storage.) Then when you run the Migrate a Cluster wizard and need to specify that disk for a particular migrated resource, you can look at the list and select the disk labeled Mount1-1. After finishing the wizard, in Disk Management, for the disk that hosts a collection of mounted disks, you can assign the appropriate drive letter, for example, F. Then you can return to Failover Cluster Management to configure the disk resource for Mount1-1 so that it is dependent on the resource for the disk F. Similarly, you would configure the disk resources for all other disks mounted on disk F so that they depended on the disk resource for disk F.

The following illustrations show selected stages in this process. In the following illustration, a new disk has already been labeled Mount1-1 (through Disk Management) and added to the cluster Available Storage. The new disk is shown in Failover Cluster Management.

In the following illustration, the Migrate a Cluster Wizard has been used to specify that new, labeled disks in Available Storage are to be used in the new configuration instead of the old disks. After this has been specified, the Migrate a Cluster Wizard has a display similar to the following.

After running the wizard and fully creating the mounted disk configuration, the last step is to configure disk dependencies in Failover Cluster Management. For each disk resource for a mounted drive, open the Properties sheet and on the Dependencies tab, specify a dependency on the disk resource for the host drive (where the mounted drives reside). This ensures that the Cluster service brings the host drive online first, followed by the drives that are dependent on it.

After configuring dependencies, you can view a dependency report by clicking the service or application and under Actions, clicking Show Dependency Report. The following illustration shows four mount points configured with the correct dependencies on the disk on which they are mounted:

Additional references

Cluster Migrations Involving New Storage: Drive Letters and Labels