Creating and formatting what Windows server perceives as disk drives for your applications and data involves creating network server storage spaces on OS/400. For conceptual information about
user-defined network server storage spaces, see “Disk drives for Windows server on iSeries” on page 90.
To add a Windows disk drive (network server storage space), perform these tasks:
1. “Create disk drives for Windows server on iSeries”
2. Link disk drives for Windows server on iSeries (See “Link disk drives for Windows server on iSeries”) 3. “Format disk drives for Windows server on iSeries” on page 95
Create disk drives for Windows server on iSeries: Creating a Windows disk drive (network server storage space) is the first step toward adding disk space for Windows servers on Integrated xSeries Servers. The time that you need to create a disk drive is proportional to the size of the drive. After creating the disk drive, you must link (See “Link disk drives for Windows server on iSeries”) it to the network server description of your Windows server and “Format disk drives for Windows server on iSeries” on page 95 it before you can use it.
To create a Windows disk drive by using iSeries Navigator, follow these steps:
1. Expand Network.
2. Expand Windows Administration.
3. Right-click the Disk Drives folder and select New Disk or click the appropriate icon from the iSeries Navigator toolbar.
4. Specify a disk drive name and description.
5. If you want to copy data from another disk, select Initialize disk with data from another disk. Then select the source disk to copy data from.
6. Specify the disk capacity. See the online help for details on valid disk sizes associated with a particular file system format.
7. Select a disk pool (auxiliary storage pool) to contain the disk.
8. Click OK.
9. Link the new storage space (See “Link disk drives for Windows server on iSeries”) to the network server description of your Windows server.
If you want to use the CL command, see CRTNWSSTG.
Notes:
Creating a storage space creates a partition for the drive but does not format it.
Creating or starting a server with a disk drive in an independent disk pool (ASP) requires that the disk pool device is varied on.
Link disk drives for Windows server on iSeries: In order for Windows server to recognize disk drives (network server storage spaces), you must link them to your network server description (NWSD). You must
“Create disk drives for Windows server on iSeries” a disk drive before you can link it. After you create and link a new disk drive, it appears as a new hard drive on Windows server. After creating the drive, you must first “Format disk drives for Windows server on iSeries” on page 95 before you can use it.
Disk drives can be linked to servers in one of the following ways:
1. Static disk drive links allow disk drives to be linked to the server using user specified link sequence positions. The order that the Windows server sees the drives is determined by the relative order of the link sequence positions. The Windows server must be shut down when adding a static disk drive link.
This type of link is allowed for any version of Windows server. Up to 16 disk drives can be linked using the static type. The system defined drives crated by the INSWNTSVR command are linked as static drives.
2. A cluster quorum resource disk drive link is used to link the cluster quorum resource disk drive to the servers in the cluster. This type of link is not allowed for Windows NT 4.0 servers or for the Integrated Netfinity Servers (6617 or 2850) resource types..
3. Cluster shared disk drive links allow a disk drive to be shared among clustered Windows 2000 or Windows .NET servers. This type of link is not allowed for Windows NT 4.0 servers or for the Integrated Netfinity Servers (6617 or 2850) resource types. Up to 15 disk drives can be linked as shared between the nodes that are clustered together. A shared drive can only be linked to nodes that share a common quorum resource drive. Drives of this type are available to all nodes that are joined together by the links of the cluster quorum resource. Each node has access to the shared drives under the control of Windows Cluster services running on each node.
NOTE:
Drives that are linked as shared should be linked to ALL nodes that are clustered together.
4. Dynamic disk drive links allow additional disk drives to be linked to a Windows 2000 or Windows .NET server using dynamically assigned link sequence positions. The disk link sequence position is assigned dynamically at the time that the disk is linked to an active server. The disk link sequence position can be specified, but it is not used until the server is restarted. The Windows server can either be shut down or active when adding a dynamic disk drive link. However, if adding a dynamic link to a server that is running on a type 2850 or 6617 Integrated Netfinity Server, then the server must be shut down and restarted in order for Windows to see the disk drive. This type of link is not allowed for Windows NT 4.0 servers.
When a Windows server is started, it sees the disk drives in the following order:
1. Statically linked disk drives
2. Cluster quorum resource disk drive 3. Cluster shared disk drives
4. Dynamically linked disk drives
Within each of these link type categories, the disks appear to Windows in the order of their user specified link sequence positions. When dynamically linking a disk drive to an active server, the new disk drive appears to Windows server following all other linked disk drives.
To link a disk drive to a Windows server by using iSeries Navigator, follow these steps:
1. If you are not linking a disk drive dynamically, then “Shut down Windows server from OS/400” on page 82 your Windows server
2. In iSeries Navigator, expand Network 3. Expand Windows Administration 4. Select Disk Drives
5. Right-click an available disk drive and select Add Link, or select the drive and click the appropriate icon from the iSeries Navigator toolbar
6. Select the server to link the disk to
7. Select one of the available link types and the link sequence position 8. Select one of the available data access types
9. Click OK
10. If you are not linking a disk drive dynamically, then “Starting Windows server from OS/400” on page 81 your Windows server
If you want to use the CL command, see ADDNWSSTGL.
If the disk drive is a new disk drive that has not previously been formatted, now you need to “Format disk drives for Windows server on iSeries”.
Managing disk drives when running out of drive letters:
The maximum number of disk drives that can be linked to a Windows 2000 or Windows .NET server is 32 disk drives (48 with cluster service). Since not all drives will have a drive letter, other options must be used to utilize all storage linked to the server. Here are two options to utilize all disk drives which are linked to a server.
1. A disk drive letter can be made up of multiple disk drives using a spanned volume set.
a. From Disk Management, right click on each disk drive number and select Upgrade to Dynamic Disk... from pop-up menu.
b. Right click on a disk drive partition and select Create Volume... from pop-up menu.
c. Follow the create volume wizard to create a Spanned volume making sure to add the multiple disks to the spanned volume. Note: This feature is nice because if the volume eventually gets full, a disk can be dynamically added, and immediately added to the spanned volume without ever requiring to reboot the server.
2. A disk drive can be mounted over a subdirectory of an existing disk drive letter.
a. Create a directory on a disk drive letter that is formatted with NTFS. For example, MD C:\MOUNT1.
b. From Disk Management, click over disk drive partition you wish to format and select Format from the pop-up menu.
c. Once drive is formatted, right click over disk drive partition again and select Change Drive Letter and Path... from pop-up menu.
d. Select Add.
e. Select radio button Mount in this NTFS folder:
f. Use Browse button to find directory C:\MOUNT1 that was created in step 1.
g. Click OK to make that directory a mount point for this disk drive.
Drives that are added to a Windows cluster have some additional special restrictions. The
ADDNWSSTGL command may generate new message reason codes that indicate the following new additional errors:
v CPD8F81 - Network server storage space link cannot be added.
v RC = 1A - the storage is already linked to a server in a different windows cluster.
This indicates that an attempt to link a drive as shared was made but the NWSD does not have the same quorum resource as other node the drive is already linked to.
v RC = 1B - the storage is already linked to a server of different type than the server currently trying to link to. An attempt was made to link a drive to a NWSD of different types. This is not allowed.
Format disk drives for Windows server on iSeries: In order to use Windows disk drives (network server storage spaces), you must format them. Before you can format them, you must first “Create disk drives for Windows server on iSeries” on page 93 and link (See “Link disk drives for Windows server on iSeries” on page 93) the disk drives, then “Starting Windows server from OS/400” on page 81 the Windows server from OS/400.
NOTE:
Windows 2000 or Windows .NET servers running on an Integrated xSeries Server or Adapter can dynamically link storage spaces while the server is varied on using the Dynamic storage link parameter.
To format disk drives, follow these steps.
For Windows 2000 or Windows .NET Server:
1. On the Windows server console, from the Start menu, select Programs, then Administrative Tools, then Computer Management.
2. Double-click Storage.
3. Double-click Disk Management.
4. Select the drive letter that you wish to format. Click over it with the right mouse button and select Format from the pop-up menu.
5. Select the file system you specified when you created the storage space.
6. Follow the prompts to format the new drive.
For Windows NT 4.0:
1. On the Windows server console, from the Start menu, select Programs, then Administrative Tools, then Disk Administrator.
2. Select the drive letter that you wish to format. Click over it with the right mouse button and select Format from the pop-up menu.
3. Select the file system you specified when you created the storage space.
4. Follow the prompts to format the new drive.