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Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

 
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John_246
Advisor

Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

GDay Everyone,

I am about to face the same (or simmilar upgrade) and have a simmilar quesion. My enviroment is as follows:

(top)
Controller Enclosure 4
-> Controller B
-> Controller A
Disk Enclosure 3
Disk Enclosure 2
Disk Enclosure 1


At the moment "before" adding the new disk enclosure, Disk enclosure 1 is plugged into the first bottom plug on the EMU, Disk enclosure 2 is plugged into the second bottom plug, Disk enclosure 3 is plugged into the third and the controllers are pluged into the forth using the 'Y' cable. There is a terminator plug at the top and bottom of the EMU cable. Now the question I have is this: Considering I am going to physically going to install this shelf on the bottom, I am going to have remove the terminator at the bottom and attach the EMU extension and plug the terminator into that extension. Then I am going to plug the new drive shelf into the new bottom plug of the EMU cable. Doing so, will this make the new shelf "Disk Enclosure 5" or keeping the idea that it's a bottom up numbering system, will it renumber all the enclosures making the new bottom enclosure "Disk Enclosure 1". So basically will I get this:

(top)
Controller Enclosure 4
-> Controller B
-> Controller A
Disk Enclosure 3
Disk Enclosure 2
Disk Enclosure 1
Disk Enclosure 5 (new)

OR

(top)
Controller Enclosure 5
-> Controller B
-> Controller A
Disk Enclosure 4
Disk Enclosure 3
Disk Enclosure 2
Disk Enclosure 1 (new)

If the numbering will be all over the place can I actually manually renumber the Enclosure ID's ?

Thanks for any answers anyone may be able to give me.

Cheers

John
10 REPLIES 10
Phillip Thayer
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

John,

The enclosure number is physical position of the enclosure in relation to the bottom of the rack. (Or bottom connector on the Cabinet Bus.) So, 01 is the address of the enclosure connected to the bottom connector in the first (lower) ID expansion cable and 14 is the address of the enclosure closest to end of the bus, the top connector in
the last (upper) ID expansion cabinet cable.

Using this theory then your configuration will show as follows:

(top)
Controller Enclosure 5
-> Controller B
-> Controller A
Disk Enclosure 4
Disk Enclosure 3
Disk Enclosure 2
Disk Enclosure 1 (new)

As you suspected.

One thing to remember, your configuration is not according to EVA Best Practices since it is an unbalanced shelf configuration. It IS a supported configuration however. It is best when you add new shelves that you redistribute all the disk drives to be evenly spread across all disk drive shelves in the EVA for optimal performance.

Phil
Once it's in production it's all bugs after that.
John_246
Advisor

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

G'Day Phillip,

Thanks for your reply. One thing that I am curious about is as you indicated, when I plug in the new enclosure to the bottom of the EMU, that new enclosure will get assigned the ID of 1. Now, that would sugest that all the enclosures and controller enclosures will become renumbered?

(top)
Controller Enclosure 4 -> Becomes Disk Enclosure 5
-> Controller B
-> Controller A
Disk Enclosure 3 -> Becomes Disk Enclosure 4
Disk Enclosure 2 -> Becomes Disk Enclosure 3
Disk Enclosure 1 -> Becomes Disk Enclosure 2
Disk Enclosure 0 (before being added) -> Becomes Disk Enclosure 1 after being added.

That being said, will that effect any of the Disk groups and VDisks already created having the controller and disk enclosures being renumbered? Also, you mentioned that this configuration is an unbalanced shelf configuration. Just to let you know, at the moment the existing shelf 1,2 & 3 all contain fully populated 300GB drives, the new shelf (to be added at the bottom), will be fully populated with 300GB drives as well. How would I spread these drives evenly across the shelves when they are all fully populated and of the same capacity?

Thanks for any sugestions or input you may have.

Cheers

John
Phillip Thayer
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

John,

The drive enclosure numbers will be changed to reflect the relative position of each enclosure to the bottom of the Cabinet Bus. It will have no effect on the currently existing disk groups or vDisks.

If all shelves will be fully populated then there is no need to redistribute the disk drives. When I mentioned that you would have an unbalanced configuration it refers to the fact that all of your shleves are on one side of the controller pair. But now that I look at your configuration and realize that your using an EVA4000 that is not a critical issue. (If your on an EVA6000 or EVA8000 it would be a concern with the balance of data traffic across the fiber switched loops.)

Phil
Once it's in production it's all bugs after that.
John_246
Advisor

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

G'Day Phillip,

Thanks for your speedy reply. I feel a bit eaiser now knowing that nothing is going to go horriably wrong doing this :) My plan is to follow the steps laid out in the M5314 installation instructions on page 4 (Adding enclosure to EVA4000). All was ok, however I was a bit concerned about where was I to plug it into the EMU. My plan is to remove the terminator plug at the bottom of the EMU address bus, attach a new EMU Address Bus Segment to the bottomof the EMU Addres Bus and then attach the Bottom Terminator Plug to the newly added EMU Address Bus Segment. Then I would attach the newly added drive enclosure to the newly added EMU Address Bus Segment. I hope this makes sence :) Im almost confusing myself here ;) This is all done after I have attached Loop1 and then Loop1B.

Thanks again,

John
Phillip Thayer
Esteemed Contributor
Solution

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

John,

I don't see any problem with the steps you set out. It's pretty standard to add shelves to EVA's. If your truly worried about things not working then you can always shutdown the EVA and do the work, then boot it again if you like. I think that would be a bit excessive personally though.

Phil
Once it's in production it's all bugs after that.
John_246
Advisor

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

GDay Phillip,

Thanks for your input on this, Most appriciated :) Ill let you know how I go :) As I said my only concern was watching all the dive enclosures renumber themselfs I though it would have an impact on the disk groups and vdisks set up on the existing dive enclosures. Thanks again.

Cheers,

John
andy5454
Established Member

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

Hi John,

Bad news I'm afraid if you do have an EVA4000 as you say then the maximum number of shelves you can attach is 4. If you want more you need to look at upfrading to a EVA6000 by adding in the loop switches. Options are listed in the EVA Quick Specs
Phillip Thayer
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

John,

Sorry, Andy is correct. I totaly forgot about that. You would need the two FC-AL switches installed which would then make your EVA4000 and EVA6000 capable of going up to 8 drive enclosures. If you do this it would be best if you went ahead and upgraded to an EVA6100 which would mean swapping the controllers and all I/O and EMU modules as well.

Phil

P.S. - Wow do I look stupid.
Once it's in production it's all bugs after that.
John_246
Advisor

Re: Adding New Drive Enclosure On The Bottom Of An EVA4000

Good Morning,
I thought I was adding the 4th shelf? Currently we have 3 drive shelves and I am adding the 4th. Dose the controller enclosure (made up of controller A & B) count as a shelf as well? Hmm I am feeling a bit faint now :) I thought a EVA4000 could have up to 4 DRIVE enclosures + the Controller Enclosure (A & B). Thanks for any input.

Cheers

John