Software-based VM-centric and flash-friendly VM storage + free version
Moderators: anton (staff), art (staff), Max (staff), Anatoly (staff)
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jerachow
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 2:05 pm
Mon Sep 28, 2015 3:26 pm
I am having a problem connecting to the targets on my StarWind servers. I have all of the drives setup: 1GB Witness, 6TB CSV01 and 2TB CSV02. They are all configured as HAImage and they are all synchronized. When I try to connect to them from my Hyper-V cluster machines I get an error that pops up that sys Service Unavailable on the cluster machines and then on the StarWind machines I get a message that pops up and says "High Availability Device "iqn....", client connection 'iqn...' has been rejected because of license restrictions. I am using the Free version and I have been following the instructions in: Starwind-virtual-san-compute-and-storage-separated-2-nodes-with-Hyper-v-cluster.pdf
Can you please advise me on what I am doing wrong?
John
Systems Administrator
Electro-Core, Inc.
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darklight
- Posts: 185
- Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2015 2:04 pm
Tue Sep 29, 2015 8:56 am
You can not connect StarWind Free version targets to other machines via iSCSI. Only SMB\NAS is available.
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jerachow
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 2:05 pm
Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:48 pm
On the StarWind servers there is nothing else installed. I have a Hyper-V cluster that I am trying to connect to the StarWind servers to have HA storage for my cluster. Is there instructions on how to configure the free version as SMB or NAS? I only have experience with iSCSI.
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nohope
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2015 8:26 am
Tue Sep 29, 2015 3:42 pm
check the Starwind Resource library. There should be a guide. Something like "how to create Scale-out file server with Hyper-v.."
Last edited by
nohope on Tue Sep 29, 2015 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jerachow
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 2:05 pm
Tue Sep 29, 2015 5:43 pm
Are there instructions on how to do this with Windows 2008 R2? We have not updated to 2012 and have no intentions to do so since 2008 R2 has met our needs. I have searched all over and cannot find any resources to make this work.
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nohope
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2015 8:26 am
Wed Sep 30, 2015 8:30 am
if i'm not mistaking, scale-out file server role isn't applicable to Windows server 2008 r2. The essential requirements for MS SMB Scale-Out File server are:
- minimum 2-nodes Failover cluster running Windows server 2012;
- shared folder (either folders) with continuous availability approach created on the CSV-volume;
- clients supports SMB Transparent Failover (SMB 3.0 required).
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anton (staff)
- Site Admin
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- Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:03 am
- Location: British Virgin Islands
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Contact:
Wed Sep 30, 2015 1:46 pm
You're absolutely correct. You need to have Windows Server 2012 (R2 is actually recommended as it has SMB protocol server-side, SoFS implementation and CSV ownership change sequence improved greatly) to have Scale-Out File Server.
nohope wrote:if i'm not mistaking, scale-out file server role isn't applicable to Windows server 2008 r2. The essential requirements for MS SMB Scale-Out File server are:
- minimum 2-nodes Failover cluster running Windows server 2012;
- shared folder (either folders) with continuous availability approach created on the CSV-volume;
- clients supports SMB Transparent Failover (SMB 3.0 required).
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev
Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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mdcollins
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2015 3:00 am
Sat Oct 03, 2015 11:16 am
Is this also true for the free version if you are using VMWare and want to mirror between two nodes? We currently use iSCSI and it works great with one node. And we too are using Windows 2008 and don't want to go to 2012. The only difference is our hosts are vmware. So are we going to be forced to upgrade our one Starwind server and move to SMB rather than use iSCSI if we want to mirror between two nodes for the free version?
Thank You
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mdcollins
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2015 3:00 am
Tue Oct 06, 2015 4:56 pm
Thank you for the info. That is disappointing. So with a Single node I can do iSCSI, but if I want to mirror it I have to do SMB or NFS. Pardon my ignorance, does that mean I also have to move to Windows Server 2012, thats something I really don't want to do if I can do this with 2008 R2.
Thank You
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nohope
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2015 8:26 am
Wed Oct 07, 2015 5:08 pm
You've made proper conclusions. Free version isn't intended to use in production scenarios, actually. So if u wanna to get mirror between 2 nodes, and don't wanna rebuild (it's meant "to move to Windows Server 2012") your working environment, then will buy the commercial version, which is eligible for most production purposes, and proceed to use the Windows Server 2008.
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darklight
- Posts: 185
- Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2015 2:04 pm
Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:39 am
Well, actually free version is intended and even allowed for production scenarios, however, it's just needs some more specific requirements. I personally use the free version on some sites. It's quite simple if you have two dedicated servers. But of course, you need SoFS for it, that's true.