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mix and match hard disks?

 
Matt Huntley
Occasional Advisor

mix and match hard disks?

I've got a va7100, with 5 18gb 15k disks.. and was wondering if I could add a 36gb 10k disk to the array and have it work, or do they have to be the same??

3 REPLIES 3
Bill McNAMARA_1
Honored Contributor

Re: mix and match hard disks?

apparently so,
this is from the config guide:

The HP Surestore Virtual Array 7100 is a disk storage system that holds from four to 15 disk drives. The array
has scalable capacities from 72 GB to 270 GB (211 GB usable) with all 18-GB disk drives and from 144 GB to
540 GB (428 GB usable) with all 36-GB disk drives and from 292 GB to 1.1 TB with 73-GB disk drives.
Capacities and spindle speeds can also be mixed.


However, I am not al so familiar with it, but the autoraid could do this, BUT, there was a big but, you had to add different disk sizes in double, or else the difference would not be taken into account (can't raid 1 with different sized disks)

Add 2 just to be safe.

Later,
Bill
It works for me (tm)
Bill McNAMARA_1
Honored Contributor

Re: mix and match hard disks?

Also from the config guide:

Disk Drives
===========
The disk drives provide the storage medium for the disk array. A minimum of ten (10) drives are required to
operate the disk array. This is because two (2) drives are required for parity in each redundancy group.
Different capacity disk modules can be installed in the same array.

Four types of disk drives can be installed in the array and capacities can be mixed within the array:

??? 18-GB Low-Profile Fibre Channel 15,000 rpm
??? 36-GB Low-Profile Fibre Channel 10,000 rpm
??? 36-GB Low-Profile Fibre Channel 15,000 rpm
??? 73-GB Low-Profile Fibre Channel 10,000 rpm

Loading Rules
=============
VA7400 disk loading rules:

??? Ten (10) disk minimum per VA7400

??? One hundred and five (105) disks maximum

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
??? Four (4) disks minimum for each disk type that is installed, then user can add singles after that.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DS2400/DS2405 (disk enclosure) disk loading rules:
??? Two (2) disk minimum
??? Fifteen (15) disk maximum per DS2400/DS2405

A new disk can be added at any time, even while the disk array is operating. The array controller will recognize
that a new disk has been added and will include the disk in the array configuration automatically if the Auto
Include feature is enabled. To make the additional capacity available to the host, a new logical drive must be
created, and the resulting drive must be configured into the operating system.

Later,
Bill
It works for me (tm)
Enes Dizdarevic
Honored Contributor

Re: mix and match hard disks?

Yes, you can mix different speed and capacity disks in VA.
Be carefull with Active Hot Spare space reservation. If you add small number of bigger disks and your Active Hot Spare is set to one or two largest disk capacity Active Hot Spare space will be increased and your usable disk space will not be increased as you expected.