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From time to time I am in the situation where I need to get data back from storage-side snapshots of cluster shared volumes. I suppose I just never figured out a way to do it right, so I always needed to:

  1. expose the shadow copy as a separate LUN
  2. offline the original CSV in the cluster
  3. un-expose the LUN carrying the original CSV
  4. make sure my cluster nodes have detected the new LUN and no longer list the original one
  5. add the volume to the list of cluster volumes, promote it to be a CSV
  6. copy off the data I need
  7. undo steps 5. - 1. to revert to the original configuration

This is quite tedious and requires downtime for the original volume. Is there a better way to do this without involving a separate host outside of the cluster?

the-wabbit
  • 41,352

2 Answers2

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Sometimes vendors can integrate with the windows "previous versions" feature to allow you to grab data from snapshots. If that's supported with your storage, that would be the ideal. Otherwise, you'll have to either figure out a way to mount the shadow copy in read-only without having it cause trouble to the server or the R/W production volume.

Basil
  • 8,931
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In doing some research and testing it appears that the underlying file system of a CSV is NTFS, so you should be able to add the LUN for the snapshot to a VM via iSCSI and access it as you would any other NTFS volume and grab whatever files you need off of it. This eliminates the need to down your cluster and offline the active CSV LUN.

joeqwerty
  • 111,849