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Quick Start Guide:

Creating HA Device with
StarWind Virtual SAN Free
FEBRUARY 2017

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Changes
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If you have questions about installing or using this software, check this and other documents first -
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About StarWind
StarWind is a pioneer in virtualization and a company that participated in the development of this
technology from its earliest days. Now the company is among the leading vendors of software and
hardware hyper-converged solutions. The company’s core product is the years-proven StarWind
Virtual SAN, which allows SMB and ROBO to benefit from cost-efficient hyperconverged IT
infrastructure. Having earned a reputation of reliability, StarWind created a hardware product line and
is actively tapping into hyperconverged and storage appliances market. In 2016, Gartner named
StarWind “Cool Vendor for Compute Platforms” following the success and popularity of StarWind
HyperConverged Appliance. StarWind partners with world-known companies: Microsoft, VMware,
Veeam, Intel, Dell, Mellanox, Citrix, Western Digital, etc.

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Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Implementation ................................................................................................................................ 5
Contacts.............................................................................................................................................. 9

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Introduction
StarWind Virtual SAN Free allows creating a fault tolerant and high performing storage pool
by mirroring existing server’s internal storage between nodes. It is a free version of StarWind
Virtual SAN that eliminates need in physical shared storage. StarWind Virtual SAN Free is a
full-fledged production platform offering all the features of StarWind VSAN. It utilizes all the
industry-standard uplink protocols like iSCSI, SMB3, NFS and the latest iSER and NVMf. It is
shipped with a number of ready to use Powershell scripts and supports both hyper-
converged and “compute and storage separated” configurations. It is completely functional
and allowed for production.

This guide is intended for experienced Windows Server users and administrators who are
willing to configure a two-node highly available device that will run on top of Windows Server
2012 R2 using StarWind Virtual SAN Free.

A full set of up-to-date technical documentation can always be found here, or by pressing
the Help button in the StarWind Management Console.

For any technical inquiries please visit our online community, Frequently Asked Questions
page, or use the support form to contact our technical support department.

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Implementation
1. Open the folder containing StarWind PowerShell samples.

By default, samples are located under the path:

C:\Program Files\StarWind Software\StarWind\StarWindX\Samples\powershell.

2. Locate the file named CreateHA(two nodes).ps1 and copy it to any other place for further
editing.

3. Open the file CreateHA(two nodes).ps1 file with PowerShell ISE (or any other text editor)
and change the values marked with red.

4. For the first StarWind node:

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5. For the second StarWind node:

• secondNode.HostName; Enter a the IP address of a host where StarWind service is running;

• secondNode.HostPort; Enter the number of a port for connecting to the StarWind Service

(3261 by default);

• secondNode.Login and secondNode.Password; Enter StarWind username and password

(default values are: username: root, password: starwind);

• secondNode.ImagePath; Enter the path to an existing directory where image file will be

located on the partner node (second node);

• secondNode.ImageName; Enter an image file name;

• secondNode.Size; Enter an image file size in megabytes. Note that is has be equal to the

value of firstNode.Size;

• secondNode.CreateImage; Create an image file. Note that secondNode.CreateImage value

should be equal to $true;

• secondNode.TargetAlias; Enter the alias of the target;

• secondNode.AutoSynch; Make sure to specify automatic or manual synchronization after

device creation by setting the value of this variable to either $true or $false;

• secondNode.SyncInterface;

• Synchronization interfaces. Enter the IP address(es) of the partner node interface(s) (the

“first” StarWind node) which will be used as the synchronization channel;

• secondNode.HBInterface; Heartbeat interfaces. Enter the IP address(es) of the partner node

interface(s) (the “first” StarWind node) which will be used as the heartbeat channel;

• secondNode.ALUAOptimized; Set ALUA optimization by entering $true or $false values.

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©2017, StarWind Software Inc. All rights reserved.

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