topic Re: Logical drive limit???? on a smart array 4200.....help! in Disk Enclosures

Logical drive limit???? on a smart array 4200.....help!

Nocturnal — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 12:58:20 GMT

Hello

We recently purchased a storageworks 4300 enclosure with (7) 146.8GB drives. It's connected to a smart array 4200 in an ML530. All works fine but I cannot create a logical drive over 500GB. On that array it's giving me 514072MB and 326006MB. I'd really like to have one logical drive 840078MB.

This is the first time I'm running into this situation, in the past I only delt with 72GB drives. Is there a way to get over 500GB with this controler or will I have to purchase a different one, also which one would that be?

Thanks

Re: Logical drive limit???? on a smart array 4200.....help!

Mike Naime — Sat, 06 Sep 2003 03:15:39 GMT

By comparing the Shelf specifications,
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/drives-enclosures/4300enclosure/description.html#quickspecs
and looking at the numbers that you provided, I would suspect that the storage system is reserving at least one drive for spareset (Disk failure) this then leaves you 6 drives for making your LUN. 6x146 aprox=876GB, -146 if we raid it = 730GB So from a pure numbers standpoint, there is no logical reason for the storage cabinet to be the problem.

Are you sure that this is a storage cabinet problem, and not a controller and/or OS LUN sizing limitation? If you look at the geometric progression 146, 292, 438, 584, 730, 876, and 1022. Your 514072 looks closer to a 512GB LUN presentation limit than a physical disk size limit.

The 4200 online manual does not mention a maximum LUN presentation size. Then again, all of the 1999 examples where using 4 and 9GB disks. I would guess that you need to upgrade the 4200 controller for something newer that will support a larger LUN size.

If you look at this page, you can see a 2TB maximum LUN size on these controllers.
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/arraycontrollers/smartarray6402/description.html

Good Luck.

Re: Logical drive limit???? on a smart array 4200.....help!

Nocturnal — Sat, 06 Sep 2003 03:51:19 GMT

Thanks for the reply Mike this is what I suspected. I might have worded the terminology wrong. But I was almost sure that the SA4200 controler was the problem I just wasn't certain. Thanks for the info on the 6402 I already told my boss that we might need to get another card for what I want to do.

Thanks again.

Re: Logical drive limit???? on a smart array 4200.....help!

Christian Schwartz-Søre — Mon, 08 Sep 2003 11:35:23 GMT

Another way of dealing with that issue is to install veritas Volume Manager on the Windows host.

Create another LUN on the array controller, and then on the OS level using Veritas Volume Manager create a volume of your desired size. That way you bypass the limitations of the controller hardware.

regards
christian