topic EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question in Disk Enclosures

EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question

morrisosu — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:23:18 GMT

Quick EVA question. On the EVA4400, can the controllers manage the other Disk Enclosures (say ones below) a drive enclosure/shelf that has been completely powered down? In other words can the controllers still see the remaining other enclosures if both I/O modules are removed on one enclosure? The cabling intuitively indicates this is possible, but that doesn't always mean anything.

What we need to do is replace a disk enclosure without downtime, all disks in the enclosure have been un-grouped btw.

Thanks so much!

Re: EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question

IBaltay — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:15:26 GMT

Hi,
this could help you:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01419085/c01419085.pdf?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

only the disk enclosure additon and not removal is supported online

Re: EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question

morrisosu — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:21:00 GMT

I was afraid of that. Thanks for the info!

Re: EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question

hpite — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:30:01 GMT

If you are replacing the whole enclosure AND you have the new enclosure standing by, I think it would be possible to add the new enclosure, move the drives and then recable to bypass the old enclosure. When recabling, you would do one loop at a time.

If you do not have the spare enclosure handy, then it might be possible to bypass one I/O module at a time (ie connect the cable in P1 to the next enclosure). Then you would have bypassed the whole enclosure.

Since all your drives are ungrouped, there is no data accessible anyway. So you might as welldo this offline?

Re: EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question

Patrick Terlisten — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:11:38 GMT

Hello,

sure there is a way to do this online, but it's not supported. So I would schedule downtime and do this offline.

Best regards,
Patrick

Re: EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question

morrisosu — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:26:07 GMT

Well just the enclosure that has the bad bay and needs to be replaced has no drives grouped, so there are other enclosures with drives grouped (both above and below the defective enclosure). I can't un-group them all as I need the capacity to stay online.

However, I see what you all are saying how it should be possible, just not supported.

Re: EVA4400 Enclosure Loop Question

Rampy(Venu) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:14:39 GMT

Just make sure that if you have ungrouped all the drives in that enclosure and removed them out of the bay then dont wait too long to get a downtime as it might lead to certain loop issues.
So as quickly as possible replace the enclosure and add the drives,start grouping.