I am after some information on using Storage Replica instead of a SAN in a 2 node Hyper-V Cluster.

I plan on using just the 2 Physical hosts that will have both the storage spaces and hyper-v role enabled

Are Tiered Storage Spaces usable for Storage Replication?

I am after at least 14.6TB of Storage for the VM's. I was thinking of 8x 4TB HDD with 2x 200GB SSD in a mirrored Tiered storage space. Then using 2x 200GB SSD for the LOG volume for Storage Replica. The Host OS will boot off a Hardware RAID Mirror of 2x 600GB SAS HDD.

Each server will have SFP+ DA to each other over 2 links. Should I LBFO or leave seperate? Would going through a Virtual Switch offer any benefits? 

We would not be expanding above 2 nodes for at least 3 years.

Will this be possible? will it work? 

I am after some information on using Storage Replica instead of a SAN in a 2 node Hyper-V Cluster.

I plan on using just the 2 Physical hosts that will have both the storage spaces and hyper-v role enabled

Are Tiered Storage Spaces usable for Storage Replication?

I am after at least 14.6TB of Storage for the VM's. I was thinking of 8x 4TB HDD with 2x 200GB SSD in a mirrored Tiered storage space. Then using 2x 200GB SSD for the LOG volume for Storage Replica. The Host OS will boot off a Hardware RAID Mirror of 2x 600GB SAS HDD.

Each server will have SFP+ DA to each other over 2 links. Should I LBFO or leave seperate? Would going through a Virtual Switch offer any benefits? 

We would not be expanding above 2 nodes for at least 3 years.

Will this be possible? will it work? 

Storage Replica is not "Shared Nothing" clustering solution, main purpose of it is Disaster Recovery... So YES, you can use SR on a two-node Hyper-V cluster but in this case you have to have your storage being brought to cluster so both nodes should have access to it. iSCSI works for that, FC also, SAS - yes but stand-alone Storage Spaces on two individual nodes - NO. You can however replicate running VMs from one stand-alone Hyper-V host to another (both directions with a set of a different LUNs, pseudo active-active) and orchestrate a failover (something you could do before with a Hyper-V Replica but now sync and not async and on LUN and not on VHDX level and w/o any data loss).

We did such a project with TP1 version of Windows Server 10 and you can follow this Step-by-Step guide to do what you want, see:

Storage Replica to build a pseudo-"Shared Nothing" Two-Node Hyper-V Cluster

http://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/storage-replica-with-microsoft-failover-cluster-and-clustered-hyper-v-vm-role-windows-server-technical-preview/

Good luck!

As stated above, Storage Replica is designed to be a disaster recovery solution.

However, we do plan to enable creating clusters without shared storage through another feature.  Storage Spaces Shared Nothing will enable you to do this, and will unlock scenarios similar to what you see with VMware vSAN.

Thanks!
Elden

• Proposed as answer by Elden ChristensenMicrosoft employee Thursday, February 05, 2015 11:02 PM

As stated above, Storage Replica is designed to be a disaster recovery solution.

However, we do plan to enable creating clusters without shared storage through another feature.  Storage Spaces Shared Nothing will enable you to do this, and will unlock scenarios similar to what you see with VMware vSAN.

Thanks!
Elden

As stated above, Storage Replica is designed to be a disaster recovery solution.

However, we do plan to enable creating clusters without shared storage through another feature.  Storage Spaces Shared Nothing will enable you to do this, and will unlock scenarios similar to what you see with VMware vSAN.

Thanks!
Elden

Is their any where I can find out some information on Storage Space Shared Nothing? As in requirements?

You can view TechEd video here:

Scale-Out File Servers in next version of Windows Server

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Europe/2014/CDP-B325

Requirements: 4 servers, no hyper-converged setup FOR NOW, only SoFS setup (no SQL...). 10 GbE is required and 40GbE is recommended. All types of storage are supported: SATA, SAS, PCIe, NVMe, SCSI, MFM, RLL etc.

From what I understand SSSN feature can be enabled and configured by a limited set of guys and MSFT asked not blog about how to deal with it... Leaving direct path to MSFT ppl :)

Thank you for that.

I wish I could get involved in trailing this feature.

I just wonder about a few things.

I wouldn't cluster the host OS RAID 1, But would I need 6x 4TB HDD and 2X 513GB SSD in each server? I am judging from the videos they want a RDMA dedicated network for storage.

What they haven't mentioned is can I run the SSSN feature on the same servers as my Hyper-V cluster or do I need a second set of servers to achieve this? as in do i need 4 x Storage servers in SOFS with SSSN then my 2x Hyper-V hosts to get a Shared Nothing Hyper-V Cluster with Failover? or do I just need the 4X servers in total?

Thank you for that.

I wish I could get involved in trailing this feature.

I just wonder about a few things.

I wouldn't cluster the host OS RAID 1, But would I need 6x 4TB HDD and 2X 513GB SSD in each server? I am judging from the videos they want a RDMA dedicated network for storage.

What they haven't mentioned is can I run the SSSN feature on the same servers as my Hyper-V cluster or do I need a second set of servers to achieve this? as in do i need 4 x Storage servers in SOFS with SSSN then my 2x Hyper-V hosts to get a Shared Nothing Hyper-V Cluster with Failover? or do I just need the 4X servers in total?