DL380 SCSI Duplex - can you apply without reinstalling O/S?

[rjf999]

Hi all

I suspect the answer is going to be 'No' but I said I would research it before going back to the project co-ordinator...!!!

We are trying to bring a number of existing servers that were built outside of what is deemed "corporate specification" up to scratch - mostly its just adding some memory, applying some service packs and so on, but it has been brought to our attention that the corporate spec includes the server being configured as duplex... we would prefer not to have to rebuild the 30+ servers to get them ratified... has anyone any definitive answer.. I cant find anything on the Compaq

http://www that

addresses the question... can we just apply the terminator, or will we need to rebuild after applying it? disk configuration is RAID1 for boot, RAID5 for data....


thanks,
Rob

 

[ntinlin]

Think only the DL380 G3 supports duplex.

As far as I can see you should just be able to do as you say and use the supplied terminator board and cabling. You could also add another RAID controller to support the last 4 drives without too many problems as long as it used the same o/s driver.
5i must always be connected to the first two drives though if you want diagnostics etc. to work.

One thing to note though is that the DL380 does not support 'true' duplex, or what I would consider proper duplex. That is you cannot split drives in the same array between channels. i.e. First two drives must go on one channel and the other 4 on the 2nd. You cannot have drive 0,1,2 on first channel and 3,4,5 on 2nd.

Neill

 

[rjf999]

thanks for the response. I guess I'll put a test bed together to check it out, but perhaps this wont be the problem I expected it to be.


Rob

 

[ntinlin]

Shouldn't be.

If you do add an additional controller the 5i will complain that the array you have moved over is missing but you just go into ORCA and delet it.

What I would definitely check however is whether your 5i's have Battery Backed Write Cache or not. Makes a big difference to throughput if you have it.

Neill