Skip to main content

Backup SAN on Windows Failover Cluster

Thread needs solution

I am trying to configure backups in our production environment that consists of two Windows 2008R2 servers configured as a fail-over cluster which communicate over iSCSI to a Dell SAN. ProductionNode1 and ProductionNode2 are the servers.

When the active server owns the SAN, the drives show up on that server as a local drive (F:). When/if that server crashes, reboots, etc. the drive migrates over to the other server, again as a local F: drive.

I have installed the Acronis agent on both servers and am able to back up files via the active server. However, at backup time, Acronis "fails" the job on the reserve server (since there is no drive F: on that server until active fail-over moves the resources to it).

Also, with this configuration if/when the SAN fails over to the other server, Acronis recognizes the drive as an entirely separate backup job, thus doubling the required storage for backups and complicating the process of retrieval/restoration.

How should I go about configuring backups in this situation?

0 Users found this helpful
frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 0
Comments: 2016

Hello Brian,

welcome to Acronis forums!

Please either make that the SAN drive is assigned the same drive letter on both systems or create two different backup tasks with different backup location paths.

Maria Belinskaya wrote:

Hello Brian,

welcome to Acronis forums!

Please either make that the SAN drive is assigned the same drive letter on both systems or create two different backup tasks with different backup location paths.

The drive letter stays the same on the server that owns the SAN.  When the server does not own the SAN, it doesn't have access to the drive (there is no drive letter). This is how a Windows Failover Cluster works - only one server has access to the drive at a time.

If I were to create two backup tasks with different backup location paths, it would double our storage requirements. We're talking more than 5 TB of data.