After joining the cluster nodes to an Active Directory domain, you can create a host cluster and configure it for Storage Spaces Direct.

Creating the host cluster

Verify that the nodes are ready for cluster creation, and then create the host cluster.

Run the Test-Cluster cmdlet:

Test-Cluster -Node S2Dnode01, S2DNode02, S2dNode03, S2dNode04 –Include 'Storage Spaces Direct', 'Inventory', 'Network', 'System Configuration'

The Test-Cluster cmdlet generates an HTML report of all performed validations and includes a summary of the validations. Review this report before creating a cluster.
Run the Get-PhysicalDisk command on all cluster nodes.
Verify the output to ensure that all disks are in the healthy state and that the nodes have an equal number of disks. Verify that the nodes have homogenous hardware configuration.
Run the New-Cluster cmdlet to create the host cluster.

Note: For the -IgnoreNetwork parameter, specify all storage network subnets as arguments. Switchless configuration requires that all storage network subnets are provided as arguments to the -IgnoreNetwork parameter.

New-Cluster -Name S2DSystem -Node S2Dnode01, S2DNode02, S2dNode03, S2dNode04 -StaticAddress 172.16.102.55 -NoStorage

In this command, the StaticAddress parameter is used to specify an IP address for the cluster in the same IP subnet as the host management network. The NoStorage switch parameter specifies that the cluster is to be created without any shared storage.

The New-Cluster cmdlet generates an HTML report of all performed configurations and includes a summary of the configurations. Review the report before enabling Storage Spaces Direct.

Enabling Storage Spaces Direct

After you create the cluster, run the Enable-ClusterS2D cmdlet to configure Storage Spaces Direct on the cluster. Do not run the cmdlet in a remote session; instead, use the local console session.

Run the Enable-ClusterS2d cmdlet as follows:

Enable-ClusterS2D -Verbose

The Enable-ClusterS2D cmdlet generates an HTML report of all configurations and includes a validation summary. Review this report, which is typically stored in the local temporary folder on the node where the cmdlet was run. The verbose output of the command shows the path to the cluster report. At the end of the operation, the cmdlet discovers and claims all the available disks into an auto-created storage pool. Verify the cluster creation by running any of the following commands:

Get-ClusterS2D

Get-StoragePool

Get-StorageSubSystem -FriendlyName *Cluster* | Get-StorageHealthReport

Configuring the host management network as a lower-priority network for live migration

After you create the cluster, live migration is configured by default to use all available networks.

During normal operations, using the host management network for live migration traffic might impede the overall cluster role functionality and availability. Rather than disabling live migration traffic on the host management network, configure the host management network as a lower-priority network in the live migration network order:

$clusterResourceType = Get-ClusterResourceType -Name 'Virtual Machine'

$hostNetworkID = Get-ClusterNetwork | Where-Object { $_.Address -eq ‘172.16.102.0’ } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty ID

$otherNetworkID = (Get-ClusterNetwork).Where({$_.ID -ne $hostnetworkID}).ID

$newMigrationOrder = ($otherNetworkID + $hostNetworkID) -join ';'

Set-ClusterParameter -InputObject $clusterResourceType -Name MigrationNetworkOrder -Value $newMigrationOrder

Updating the page file settings

To help ensure that the active memory dump is captured if a fatal system error occurs, allocate sufficient space for the page file. Dell Technologies recommends allocating at least 50 GB plus the size of the CSV block cache.

Determine the cluster CSV block cache size value by running the following command:

$blockCacheMB = (Get-Cluster).BlockCacheSize

Note: On Windows Server 2016, the default block cache size is 0. On Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022, the default block cache size is 1 GB.

Run the following command to update the page file settings:

$blockCacheMB = (Get-Cluster).BlockCacheSize 

$pageFilePath = "C:\pagefile.sys"
$initialSize = [Math]::Round(51200 + $blockCacheMB)
$maximumSize = [Math]::Round(51200 + $blockCacheMB)
     
$system = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem -EnableAllPrivileges
if ($system.AutomaticManagedPagefile) {
    $system.AutomaticManagedPagefile = $false
    $system.Put()
}
 
$currentPageFile = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_PageFileSetting
if ($currentPageFile.Name -eq $pageFilePath)
{
    $currentPageFile.InitialSize = $InitialSize
    $currentPageFile.MaximumSize = $MaximumSize
    $currentPageFile.Put()
}
else
{
    $currentPageFile.Delete()
    Set-WmiInstance -Class Win32_PageFileSetting -Arguments @{Name=$pageFilePath; InitialSize = $initialSize; MaximumSize = $maximumSize}
}

Configuring a cluster witness

A cluster witness must be configured for a two-node cluster. Microsoft recommends configuring a cluster witness for a four-node Azure Stack HCI cluster. Cluster witness configuration helps maintain a cluster or storage quorum when a node or network communication fails and nodes continue to operate but can no longer communicate with one another.

A cluster witness can be either a file share or a cloud-based witness.

Note: If you choose to configure a file share witness, ensure that it is outside the two-node cluster.

For information about configuring a cloud-based witness, see Cloud-based witness.