Considerations when you create clustered file shares on a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 server cluster

This article discusses some of the things you must consider when you create clustered file share resources on a Microsoft Windows 2000 or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 server cluster.

In an Active/Active cluster configuration, two nodes can own shared disks independently of each other. For example, one node may own a shared disk as drive X, and the other node may own a second shared disk as drive Y. Therefore, you can provide some load balancing for the hosting of shared resources between cluster nodes. For example, by using clustering, you can configure half of your network printers to be hosted by one cluster node and store the shared resources on one shared disk, and then you can configure the remaining network printers to be hosted by another cluster node and store the shared resources on a second shared disk.

Note While all the servers and the cluster nodes in the cluster can own a shared cluster resource, only one node can own this resource at any one time.

When you add a shared resource to a cluster, each node records the share in the following registry key: Important Because this registry key is not replicated between nodes in the cluster, you can configure identically named shares on two different nodes without receiving an error message. However, when the Cluster service processes a failover event, all shares in the cluster are combined. Because you cannot create a new shared resource in Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 that has the same name as a shared resource that already exists on another Windows 2000-based or Windows Server 2003-based computer, the Cluster service removes one of the shares. This removal causes the resource to become unavailable on the network.

For additional information about virtual servers in Microsoft Cluster Services, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For additional information about Microsoft Windows Cluster Services, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: