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I have a Windows cluster with two nodes. I am trying to make Fail Over Cluster using SQL Server 2012.

On both nodes there is 2 TB storage available which I can access as:

C:\Storage_For_Cluster\Volume1

So basically a 2 TB SAN is mapped on both nodes as above.

My questions is, can I make Fail Over Cluster with one disk only and all data will be saved in it? Or it is better to use a separate drive for each. If you take a look at the screenshot below, you will get an idea as to what I am talking about. As you can see we are using two drives Z and X for different options.

Since in this case I only have one drive, can I use this for all these options?

Secondly MSDTC is not installed yet (which I think is also required to make Fail Over Cluster) so I wanted to know shall I install MSDTC too on same drive as mentioned above?

enter image description here

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2 Answers 2

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MSDTC has to be installed on a separate drive while rest can be installed on another drive.

EDIT

MSDTC is needed on separate drive because once you start installing SQL Server, the drive where MSDTC is installed won't be selectable and you will see message on screen something like "Cluster Disk 2 is already in use by MSDTC".

Secondly, according to folloing article MSDTC is needed when you are using SSIS, which I am actually using.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-en/library/ms189910.aspx

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    why would MSDTC be needed on seperate drive ? Can you elaborate to make your answer more useful as in sql 2012 MSDTC would not even be needed unless OP will be using distributed transactions.
    – Kin Shah
    Commented Oct 2, 2013 at 16:47
  • MSDTC is needed on separate drive because once you start installing SQL Server, the drive where MSDTC is installed won't be selected and you will see message on screen something like "Cluster Disk 2 is already in use by MSDTC". Secondly, according to this article in my case MSDTC is needed because I am using SSIS technet.microsoft.com/en-en/library/ms189910.aspx
    – Frank Martin
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 8:17
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Yes you can use a single shared drive for data, log, tempdb, and backups; however, I prefer to use separate drives for each. If you have an IO issue down the road, it makes it easier to isolate the problem to a single drive. If all files are lumped together on a single drive, then it's much harder to find the bad egg.

If you installed MSDTC, then will need it's own shared shared disk.

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