When you mount a brand new iSCSI-based volume on your server, Windows treats it the same as if you had added a new hard drive to your computer. Take a look at this:
Open Computer Management (Start | Right-click My Computer | Manage).
Choose the Disk Management option. If the volume you are using is still blank
— that is, newly created on your iSCSI target and does not contain data —
Windows will pop up the Disk Initialization wizard, as shown
The Windows Disk Initialization wizard.
Note that Disk 1 is not yet initialized and has a size of 1,020 MB. This disk is a small target I created on my iSCSI host. An iSCSI-based volume follows the same rules as any other Windows volume.
Summary
Once you get past the mental adjustment that has to take place when you start using shared storage, you’ll probably find that iSCSI (or Fibre Channel, for that matter) shared storage opens up a number of possibilities. These steps are designed to get you quickly on your way and will not cover every scenario, but it will get you started.
The Windows Disk Initialization wizard.
Note that Disk 1 is not yet initialized and has a size of 1,020 MB. This disk is a small target I created on my iSCSI host. An iSCSI-based volume follows the same rules as any other Windows volume.
You can create this volume as basic or dynamic (although dynamic is notrecommended for iSCSI) or even as GPT (GUID partition table) volumes, which support volumes in excess of 2TB.
Just as is the case with any Windows volume, you need to initialize the new drive, create a partition, and format the new volume. Take note in that Windows truly sees this disk as just another typical volume. There is nothing on the Disk Management screen to indicate that Windows is treating this volume any differently because it is stored on an iSCSI array.
Just as is the case with any Windows volume, you need to initialize the new drive, create a partition, and format the new volume. Take note in that Windows truly sees this disk as just another typical volume. There is nothing on the Disk Management screen to indicate that Windows is treating this volume any differently because it is stored on an iSCSI array.
Summary
Once you get past the mental adjustment that has to take place when you start using shared storage, you’ll probably find that iSCSI (or Fibre Channel, for that matter) shared storage opens up a number of possibilities. These steps are designed to get you quickly on your way and will not cover every scenario, but it will get you started.