The Disk Policy
Previously referred to as "SAN Policy" in early Windows Server versions.
The new Disk Policy (previously known as the SAN Policy) is the policy Windows Server uses to determine whether or not disks should automatically mount that are detected as new on the host.
Windows Server defaults to OfflineShared, which is the correct setting when using Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC). In the case of using Windows Server as a standalone host, the disk policy should be set to OnlineAll to bring existing volumes online when the host restarts.
Note: This issue has been resolved in Purity//FA version 4.7.10 Long Life Release (LLR) and greater.
An issue has been identified in Purity//FA which cases Windows Server volumes to go offline after a Purity//FA upgrade. Following a Purity//FA Upgrade, if a Windows 2008 R2, 2008 R2 SP1, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, or 2019 server hosting FlashArray volumes is rebooted, Windows takes the volumes offline. This was due to Purity//FA returning the current version of Purity//FA in the “Product Revision” field in response to a "SCSI INQ" sent from the host.
The upgrade would change this "Product Revision" field, leading Windows Server to flag the disks associated with that volume as offline after reboot, and as a safety measure, it would require Administrator interaction before restoring connectivity. The administrator would need to open Windows Disk Management to right click on each impacted disk and manually bring them back online. In Purity//FA versions greater than 4.7.10 Long Life Release (LLR), a value of 8888 is returned as the current version into the Product Revision field, avoiding the behavior of constantly changing version numbers. Consequentially, if a disk is not set to onlineall in the Disk Policy, it will be set to offline after the next reboot. Additionally, a script has been created to set the registry values for all Disk Policies to onlineall after a server reboot. Please see Windows Reporting Drives Offline After Reboots.
To check the current disk policy run the following Windows PowerShell.
Get-StorageSetting | Select-Object NewDiskPolicy
PS C:\> Get-StorageSetting | Select-Object NewDiskPolicy
NewDiskPolicy
-------------
OfflineShared
To change this to the recommended setting, run the following Windows PowerShell:
Set-StorageSetting -NewDiskPolicy OnlineAll
| Policy Setting |
Effect |
|
OfflineAll
|
All new disks are left offline by default.
|
|
OfflineInternal
|
All disks on busses that are detected as internal are left offline as default.
|
|
OfflineShared
|
All disks on sharable busses, such as iSCSI, FC, or SAS are left offline by default.
|
|
OnlineAll (Recommended)
|
All disks are automatically brought online.
|
On Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, the SAN Policy can be changed using Windows PowerShell with the following command.
"SAN Policy=OnlineAll" | diskpart
DiskPart could be used with the following commands.
C:\>diskpart
Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0
Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: SERVER01
DISKPART> SAN
SAN Policy : Offline Shared
DISKPART> SAN POLICY=OnlineAll
DiskPart successfully changed the SAN policy for the current operating system.
DISKPART>exit
