I have seen questions from customers who get a warning in the results of their failover cluster validation that indicates the storage doesn’t support persistent reservations for Storage Spaces. They want to know why they got the warning, what it means, and what should they do about it. First, here is the text you will see in the report from the failover cluster validation. It will be highlighted in Yellow and the test may have a Yellow triangle icon next to it:
Validate Storage Spaces Persistent Reservation
Validate that storage supports the SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation commands needed by Storage Spaces to support clustering.
Test Disk <number X> does not support SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations commands needed by clustered storage pools that use the Storage Spaces subsystem. Some storage devices require specific firmware versions or settings to function properly with failover clusters. Contact your storage administrator or storage vendor for help with configuring the storage to function properly with failover clusters that use Storage Spaces.
Question: Why did I get this warning?
Failover cluster requires a specific set of SCSI-3 persistent reservation commands to be implemented by the storage so that storage spaces can be properly managed as clustered disks. The commands that are specifically needed for Storage Spaces are tested, and if they are not implemented in the way that the cluster requires, this warning will be given.
Question: What does this mean and why is it a warning and not a failure?
Failover cluster has multiple tests that check how the storage implements SCSI-3 persistent reservations. This particular test for Storage Spaces is a warning instead of a failure because clustered disks that aren’t going to use Storage Spaces will work correctly if the other SCSI-3 persistent reservation tests pass.
Question: What should I do when I get this warning?
Check the disks that are identified in the warning message and verify whether you will ever want to use those disks with Storage Spaces.
If you want to use the disks with Storage Spaces on the cluster, then you should check your storage configuration and documentation to see if there are settings or firmware/driver versions required to support clustered storage spaces.
If you aren’t going to use Storage Spaces with this cluster and storage, and the other storage validation tests indicate the tests passed, then you can ignore this warning.
The following note is in the KB article that states the support policy for Windows Server 2012 failover clusters. The yellow yield sign mentioned is referring to a warning in the validation test results. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2775067
Note The yellow yield sign indicates that the aspect of the proposed failover cluster that is being tested is not in alignment with Microsoft best practices. Investigate this aspect to make sure that the configuration of the cluster is acceptable for the environment of the cluster, for the requirements of the cluster, and for the roles that the cluster hosts.
Here are some links to more information regarding clustered storage spaces, cluster validation, and the support policies regarding the validation tests:
Blog: “How to Configure a Clustered Storage Space in Windows Server 2012” http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/06/02/10314262.aspx
TechNet: Deploy Clustered Storage Spaces http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj822937.aspx
TechNet: Validate Hardware for a Windows Server 2012 Failover Cluster http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134244.aspx
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: The Microsoft support policy for Windows Server 2012 failover clusters http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2775067
Steven Ekren
Senior Program Manager
Windows Server Failover Clustering