HP StorageWorks EVA hard disk drive bundled firmware upgrade

[hernan NJ]

I am wondering if anyone has used the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array hard disk drive bundled image to upgrade the firmware on drives in an EVA8000/8100.

Supposedly this can be done online via Command View and takes between 30 seconds to 3.5 minutes per disk, depending on I/O.

We may need to perform these upgardes, but would appreciate any feedback from anyone who has performed EVA disk drive firmware upgrades in this fashion in the past. We are concerned about issues during the process, how to remediate if needed, or how to control the process better. Any info is appreciated.

Link to bundled firmware: http://tinyurl.com/d722ge

[IBaltay · Accepted solution]

Hi,
it takes only 1 disk at a time, it is intended to the online HDD firmware ugprade... It can be applied in the off-peak hours online

[Uwe Zessin]

I've done it a number of times and it worked fine. It is doing one disk drive at a time so you do not lose data if the update of a single drive fails badly [I've never seen that so far, but ...]. So that is the reason why you cannot upgrade a disk drive which holds any VRAID-0 data - that data would be lost.

It is possible that the upgrade of a single disk drive fails in a non-fatal way. In that case I was always able to just re-run the upgrade and it took the disk fine.

[hernan NJ]

Thanks for the feedback. Can anyone provide any info on how long (per disk) this would take if/when the process is kicked off during a low I/O maintenance window?

[David Kneitel]

Just completed an online upgrade, Sunday morning (for low I/O).

Updated 69 disks in about 30 minutes, times ranged from 14 seconds to 49 seconds per disk (don't know why the range).