Disks unmounted without Windows events
4 posts · Closed
Hello,
We are using SoftPerfect RAM Disk version 4.0.8 64-bit for temp DB log and temp DB data in our SQL server, Windows Server 2016, and it was working fine since 10/29/2018 until today.
The problem is that today we found that those two disks were unmounted without any events in Windows. We fixed the problem, but we want to know why this happened. Can you help me to investigate this incident, and could you please tell me also where I can find SoftPerfect RAM Disk logs?
Many Thanks & Regards
Sorry, we don't know how/why it happened. There is simply no code in the RAM Disk driver that could have unmounted a disk without an external command. As to the logs, the RAM disk driver does not keep them.
My best guess would be that the sudden, unexpected disk unmounting was either due to a human error, i.e. someone logged in and unmounted the disks, or due to some different process issuing a IOCTL_DISK_EJECT_MEDIA command.
To prevent this from happening again, we recommend implementing the following:
- Make sure your RAM disk is a boot-time RAM disk, shown in the management console as Disks mounted on boot. This is recommended for servers.
- Remove the management console from automatic startup. It is not needed for boot-time disks and will reduce a chance of human error. This can be done in the registry in
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
- Set up a script or a monitoring rule if using a monitoring system on this server that will issue an alert or attempt to remount the disk manually should this problem reappear.
Hello Andrew,
Many thanks for your quick reply, I'll try your recommendations because I think it was a human error too.
Do you know if it could have been caused when I increased the memory space from Vcenter? I mean, could this action disturb the functionality of Ram Disk?
Regards
Generally when a RAM disk is created all the required memory is preallocated, so changes to memory space should not affect it, but I suppose it is possible.
If this issue happens again, please let me know any additional observations you may have then.