Autoraid 12H upgrade

[Eric Schrauth]

Have a 12H fully loaded with 4 gig disks and want to upgrade then to 18 gig disks. What is the good, better & best methods to use to do this?

[Eugeny Brychkov · Accepted solution]

There're two methods:

A.
1. make a full backup;
2. destry everyting on the 12h, pull out all drives and put new ones in;
3. format array, create new LUNs;
4. restore

B.
1. make a full backup;
2. turn rebuild priority to high;
3. for each disk, one by one:
- pull ONE 4GB disk at a time;
- insert one 18GB disk in;
- wait until rebuild/balancing will complete;
- check that 12h is healthy with 'arraydsp -a' command;
- proceed with next disk;
4. turn rebuild priority back to low

A is fast but depends on backup/restore speed and not online; B is slow, but can be done online, although hosts can experience increased delays accessing 12h
Eugeny

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

F/W upgrade is just about the only thing that can't be done online for the 12H, however,
for 18G drives, you'll need to potentially change your fans. The 18G fan module has a plastic bubble over the fan icon, rather than the 7200rpm fan modules sticker label. Only 1 fan can be removed from the 12H at any one time.. and you've got 10mins or so before the array will shutdown due to fan removal.. ie insert the replacement soon after!

I am not certain if controller f/w needs to be upgraded to support the 18G drives, in either case if you've got HP56 up it'll certainly be okay.

Consider also changing rebuild priority, if a disk fails from now on, the rebuilds will take much longer with 18G drives......

Later,
Bill

[Eric Schrauth]

The fan modules on the autoraid itself are different for the two different drive speeds?

[Eric Schrauth]

The fan modules on the autoraid itself are different for the two different drive speeds?

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

yes, 18G drives are 10krpm
Lower than 10krpm are the 7200rpm drives of capacities such as the 4G and 9G drives.

If your drives are 10krpm you do need new fans.

Good luck,
Bill

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Eric,
this page http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&docIndexId=3124&locale=en_US&prodSeriesId=33733&prodTypeId=12169 will help you. You will find fan notice doc, user's guide etc
Eugeny

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Actually, the 18GB drives came in 2 "flavors" - 7200RPM and 10000 RPM. If the little fan labels on the drive modules are flat then it's a 7200 RPM drive; it the little fan labels are reaised bubbles then it's a 10K drive. If you have all 7200 drives then no fan module upgrades are necessary.

BTW, 36GB drive modules (all 10K RPM) are available as well.

I would go ahead and upgrade the firmware to HP62 - it's easy and you can do it yourself - and no data is lost.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Actually, the 18GB drives came in 2 "flavors" - 7200RPM and 10000 RPM. If the little fan labels on the drive modules are flat then it's a 7200 RPM drive; it the little fan labels are reaised bubbles then it's a 10K drive. If you have all 7200 drives then no fan module upgrades are necessary.

BTW, 36GB drive modules (all 10K RPM) are available as well.

I would go ahead and upgrade the firmware to HP62 - it's easy and you can do it yourself - and no data is lost.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Actually, the 18GB drives came in 2 "flavors" - 7200RPM and 10000 RPM. If the little fan labels on the drive modules are flat then it's a 7200 RPM drive; it the little fan labels are reaised bubbles then it's a 10K drive. If you have all 7200 drives then no fan module upgrades are necessary.

BTW, 36GB drive modules (all 10K RPM) are available as well.

I would go ahead and upgrade the firmware to HP62 - it's easy and you can do it yourself - and no data is lost.