Understanding NTFS volume mount points

This topic contains highlights about NTFS mount points as they relate to Microsoft Exchange:

• About NTFS volume mount points
• Volume mount point limitations
• Volume mount point limitations in a clustered environment

Related topics

• Understanding Exchange configuration rules
• Understanding SnapManager configuration rules for Exchange
• Understanding SnapManager support for volume mount points
• Example Exchange configurations supported with SnapManager

About NTFS volume mount points  

A volume mount point is a drive or volume in Windows that is mounted to a folder that uses the NTFS file system. A mounted drive is assigned a drive path instead of a drive letter. Volume mount points enable you to exceed the 26-drive-letter limitation. By using volume mount points, you can graft, or mount, a target partition into a folder on another physical disk. For more information about volume mount points, see the Microsoft Web site.

Volume mount point limitations  

With the NTFS volume mount points feature, you can create volume mount points on a dedicated disk or a shared cluster resource disk.

Volume mount points are not supported in the following scenarios:

• When they are used as a storage location for the Exchange 2003 binaries
• When they are used with Exchange clusters that are running Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server or earlier
• When they are used with Windows clusters that are running Microsoft Windows 2000 or earlier

  For more details, see the full text of Microsoft Knowledge Base article 318458.

• When you create a volume mount point on a server cluster, consider the following key items regarding volume mount points:

Volume mount points cannot go between clustered and nonclustered disks.

You cannot create mount points that refer to the Quorum disk.

Volume mount point limitations in a clustered environment  

When creating mount points on a server cluster, keep these additional limitations in mind:

• Volume mount points are not supported on clustered Windows 2000 servers.
• The mounted volume must be of the same type as its root; that is, if the root volume is a shared cluster resource, the mounted volume must also be shared, and if the root volume is dedicated, the mounted volume must also be dedicated.
• You cannot create mount points to the Quorum disk.
• If you have a mount point from one shared cluster resource disk to another, ensure that the disks are in the same group and that the mounted disk resource is dependent on the root disk source.

  For more details, see the full text of Microsoft TechNet article 280297.

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Last updated: 28-Mar-2006 11:30:55