Exclusive mode for a SAN disk drive?

I allocated one LUN to NT system to one our customer and drive letter for this is D:. Customer complains "It is showing it in exclusive mode." What is exclusive mode for a SAN disk drive?

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Ask your customer in what context and from what display or utility they are receiving the message that the disk is in exclusive mode. This will help you understand why a disk may be in exclusive mode.

Exclusive mode on a Windows and NT disk can mean different things for both local and external (SAN) based disk storage. In a nutshell, exclusive mode is used to protect and maintain data integrity for a disk device.

For example, in a clustered or shared access environment, a specific server needs to have exclusive access to a disk or LUN at a time. For NAS or Windows shared storage, the server that has primary attachment to the LUN may have exclusive access to the disk. Another example of exclusive mode is when a maintenance or system tool needs to take exclusive access of a disk or LUN for some specific purpose.

This was first published in October 2005

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