We are getting a fully populated 24T EVA8000 soon, but are realizing this may not be enough. So we are thinking of taking an older EVA5000 and using it as an expansion chassis, or just stripping it down and getting a smaller chassis.
Has anyone done this? I'm looking for tips, gotcha's, maybe even some pictures of how people are wiring this.
Sounds like you're in a 2C12D configuration now. You're proposing just connecting the disk enclosures from your EVA5000 to the internal switches in the EVA8000, correct? I'm fairly certain that should work. A couple potential gotchas:
- There's a special cable required to connect the CAN bus to enclosures in an external rack. It's listed as part # 336881-B21. - The maximum number of spindles supported in an EVA8000 is 240, not 252, so you can't quite fully populate all your disk enclosures.
The drive enclosures from the 5K may be the same model as those for the 8K (M5314). If so, this should work a treat just as if you'd bought them new specifically for expanding the 8K. Ive never heard of it being done with the older versions of drive enclosures (M5214) so I cant really comment on that .... If memory serves me correctly they had slight differences with the EMU and loop modules.
The disks will also be OK although you may want to check firmware levels on the disks and bring them to the same level as the disks shipping with the 8K.
mackem
Talk about the XP and EVA @ http://blog.nigelpoulton.com
They're normally situated right next to each other. There's only one variant of that part number so I'm guessing the cable is sized for "next rack over" and if you need a longer one it might be a problem. You'd need to talk to HP to know for certain. And no - I've not seen any documented diagrams on how exactly one would set this up.
