Cluster Fails when Enabling Storage Spaces Direct Server 2016

Solution 1:

Don’t do S2D with only two nodes as it’s nothing but begging for troubles! Failover isn’t reliable and you can’t lose second node (obviously!) or second disk/ssd in a row. In RL it means your cluster will collapse with a very high probability during patch process and you’ll have hard times getting your data back... In your particular case you have to re-create S2D pool, create virtual disk and only after you have working shared storage you start playing with f/o cluster thing.

Solution 2:

Plus one for not to use S2D with two nodes. Starting from poor reliability and ending with short features list in such scenario. There are a lot of topics with comparing S2D with any other solutions, but this one is my favorite. https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1445491-s2d-vs-starwind-virtual-san For two nodes you can take a look at something like HP Storevirtual (but AFAIR right now it's on EOL stage) https://h20392.www2.hpe.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=VSA1TB-S or Starwind which is basically free with its features. https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san

Solution 3:

Have an update,

After looking around found another post that Failover-Clustering/S2D nodes can not have Domain Controllers installed on them.

Storage spaces direct Enable-ClusterStorageSpacesDirect returns with error Failed to start health providers

I could not find any other supporting information on this claim. (If anyone can find a reference as to why I would appreciate it.)

However, after cleaning the disks and re-initializing the storage and receiving the same errors I removed the ADDS from the Nodes and was then able to successfully configure S2D and Fail-over Clustering.

I think at one point I had actually believed that this was the case, that a DC could not be on a host node.

Sounds like few people like S2D with only 2 nodes so I will look in to a replacement option for the future.

I appreciate your help and recomendations.