MSA 1000 Questions 1

[rfr100]

Hi All,

Just started a new job where we have a couple of MSA1000 raid arrays running.

Two questions.
1. Can you mix and match drive sizes, for example, 7 36.4Gb, 7 72Gb ?

2. Is it possible to reassign some of the space ? Here's the scenario. One MSA 1000 in a cluster with 2 DL380's. The drive space is not evenly shared and one node is addressing 256Gb and the other 150ish. The server with the lower space is running low (no prizes for my use of english in that sentence!). I want to move 20-30Gb of the free space across to the node in need of space. Can this happen ?

Thanks (stars for help)

Rob

 

[fraxx]

1. Yes, but limitations apply. If you mirror 1 36 and 1 72, you'll only get 36. One half of the 72 is lost.
2. You can expand volumes, and you can also assign unused drives to an array where that volume lives. I'm fairly sure that's possible. But, and there's always a but. Windows (I'm assuming it's Windows) cannot expand a clustered volume on the fly. This calls for Dynamic Disks, and it's not possible to use Dynamic Disks in a cluster.
There's a tool from the reskit called Diskpart. It will allow you to resize a volume without reformatting it, even in a cluster. Restrictions apply, check out support.microsoft.com for this.

 

[lazzyone]

Has anoyone installed an MSA1000 (RAID 5) with a DL380 running WIN2K3?

Issue - I had a power outage last week and needed to shut down equipment. I powered up the equipment and now I am not able to see the drive array within WIN2K3. There are no error messages on the MSA1000 all looks good there. Any ideas?

 

[tomskillman]

We have an MSA1000 hooked to 2 servers - a Win 2k machine and a Win 2k3 machine. We had some trouble with the Win2k3 machine, but the problem appears to be something related to the firmware on the HBA. We are using an Emulex HBA. I had to use the HP firmware for the rebranded HBA to make it work. Our Emulex HBA is an LP9802. This corresponds to an HP FCA2404. After loading the HP firmware, the MSA1000 was seen by the 2k3 machine immediately. Hope this helps.