Exchange 2010 environment.  The existing FSW folder was created and shared on a Windows 2003 server. this server will be decommissioned soon.  Need to change FSW onto another server.  I followed the article, added Exchange trusted subsystem to the file server local administrators group, ran the PS CMD.  No error.  checked DAG status.  It shows the FSW setting has been update.  But on the file server the FSW folder was not created. 

called MS support.  The engineer told me (after test in his lab) that the FSW folder will NOT be created by the PS command (all articles I read said the folder will be created after running the PS CMD).  The folder will be created when the cluster uses FSW for voting.

I have to admit that my DAG configuration may not use FSW at all even I tried to set one.  Here is my DAG.

  in the DAG there are 3 nodes (servers), 2 at one site and 1 across the WAN.  The failover cluster manager show "Quorum Configuration: Node Majority".  This is correct because I have odd # of nodes.

questions:

1. Is the DAG config (3 nodes, Node Majority) the reason why the PS CMD doesn't create the FSW folder? 

2. the folder really won't created by the PS CMD but like MS said that it will be created when FSW is used on the fly? In my case it really won't happen, unless I remove or add a node?

Maybe our existing FSW folder was created when there were 2 nodes in a DAG. 

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Pretty much. With an odd number of nodes, all you have done is defined the FSW, the cluster has no reason to create directory at this point.

If you type Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG -Status | fl you will see a value called WitnessShareInUse that should be blank since the number of configured cluster nodes is odd.

I checked the DAG.  WitnessShareinuse is blank and I expect that.  Got a question.  If there were 2 nodes in a DAG, when I run the cmd to add FSW will the folder got created immediately or will be created next time when FSW is used?

1. Yes, you're right. The FSW is a just a configuration of the DAG. Since you have odd member, FSW is not created. To verify it, go to your cluster admin console, you'll see the quorum type is Node Majority (no witness).

2. You're right, again. The EMS cmdlet only change the setting of the DAG which is an AD object.

I checked the DAG.  WitnessShareinuse is blank and I expect that.  Got a question.  If there were 2 nodes in a DAG, when I run the cmd to add FSW will the folder got created immediately or will be created next time when FSW is used?

From what I have seen, its created immediately since its now "in use".