Whether to patch or not

[Pierre M. Camilleri]

Hi All

I am planning to replace our current SCSI2 hard drives of our HP LH4 Netserver. The hard drives will SCSI3. Our RAID controller is an integrated NetRAID controller with dual channels. This server was deployed towards the end of 1999. I've checked HP's web site for latest firmware patches & drivers and found quite some updated patches. My query is this. Should I patch and update the firmware and drivers prior to performing the disk upgrades? For example I noted that HP have issued a Firmware update for the HP LH4 Hot-Swap Backplane. I am not currently experiencing any problems so I reasoned that if it ain't broke why fix it.
Any comments?

TIA
Pierre

[Chris Wilshaw]

Your reasoning is sound - why take risks unless you have to. The only reason that I'd consider patching in your situation is if there are critical fixes that have been made in the latest versions that could impact your setup.

[Brian Peters]

Hello,

Updating firmware on the controller, hard drives, backplane is always recommmended and it is a necessary step of properly maintaining your server. It is also recommended to update the system bios and NOS drivers to the latest.

Updating all of these components will decrease the chances of performance issues, drive failures, communication problems and data corruption. When you have a critial server it is always best to have everything current. Event though it may take allot of time to update everything, my feeling is to be safe that sorry.

I would recommend to update all patches prior to upgrading the hard drive. FYI on the LH4: ULTRA3 drive (160MB/sec) will run at ULTRA2 speeds (80MB/sec) because the the controller is only a ULTRA2.