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Re: Identifying drive letter of array

 
Malcolm Brownless
New Member

Identifying drive letter of array


I have a proliant server running NT4 that has several identical 100Gb arrays on Smart array controllers, each has a single NT4 partion and drive letter. I have removed the data from one of the NT drives ready to remove the array from the server but I am not 100% sure which array is associated with which NT4 logical drive. Is there a way to match up an array to the drive and partition that is on it?
7 REPLIES 7
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: Identifying drive letter of array

When in the Array Configuration Utility, just clicking on the Array Controller should flash all the amber lights on all the drives attached to that controller. Clicking on an individual array on a particular controller should then shut off the blinking on the drives NOT associated with that array.

I could be mistaken on this, but I thought I remember seeing it happen this way on an MSA, which is a Smart Array controller genetically.


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
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Malcolm Brownless
New Member

Re: Identifying drive letter of array

Thanks Steven but ....

That only tells me the link between array and physical drives. If I have three 100Gb arrays it still doesn't tell me which nt4 drive letter each one corresponds to. There doesn't seem to be an easy way of telling which array corresponds to each NT 4 drive letter.
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: Identifying drive letter of array

are you confusing array with Logical drives?

It soulds like you have 3 logical drives in 1 array. If so, Logical drive 1 would be the first disk Windows see';s, Logical 2 would be the second and Logical 3 wouldbe the third. Windows doe this because of the way the disks are presented to toe OS.

If you look at the properties of the disk's, you should be able to find the target:bus ID which corrosponds with the Logical drive number


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)
Malcolm Brownless
New Member

Re: Identifying drive letter of array

Steven,

I have one logical drive per array on three arrays with one Nt partition on each. On the properties of the NT4 drive it doesn't show any details other than size and free space.

In Disk Administrator I have 3 separate 100Gb disks as seen by NT ( three arrays of 4 x 36Gb drives raid 5 ) as one of the drives is still being used so I don't want to pull the wrong array out. I need to be 100% sure the array for drive G in NT is array 3 in the ACU for example.
Stephen Kebbell
Honored Contributor

Re: Identifying drive letter of array

Hi Malcolm,

are all 3 arrays on the same Smart Array controller? If so, Steven's answer should still apply, i.e. Arrays A, B and C with Logical drives 1,2 and 3. ACU would still present them in that order to the OS, so Disk Administrator should see them in the same order. If they're on seperate controllers, then it gets trickier. I'm not sure if survey.txt has any information on logical drive numbering their corresponding OS Drive letters.

Regards,
Stephen
Malcolm Brownless
New Member

Re: Identifying drive letter of array

Unfortunatley one of the arrays is on a different controller. I'll check in the survey.txt to see if that has any info that will help.

Thanks
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: Identifying drive letter of array

If you check the target:bus id, you should be able to determin which disk is where.

2 disks will have similar targets and 1 disk will be different. The id should contain the logical drive id as well....

ex. 1:3:1 = disk1
1:3:2 = disk2
3:3:1 = disk3

those might not be exactly right, but should be similar.

Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)