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MSA1000 & MSA30

 
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neil barker
Occasional Advisor

MSA1000 & MSA30

Planning to cluster two servers using a MSA1000 and a single MSA30 enclosure for the storage. This is the first time I have used more than one storage enclosure. Couple of questions:
1. Can I mirror disks across the two enclosures?

2. Supposing the above is possible would it be regarded as best practice to do this.

Thanks in advance
7 REPLIES 7
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: MSA1000 & MSA30

Hello Neil,

1.) Yes, of course! I have just set up two MSA1000 with MSA30 this way.

2.) I put the mirrors in different enclosures (e.g. I mirror between Bus:0 and Bus:2 or 1/3).

Please notice that the MSA1000 needs firmware revision 4.32 to support the MSA30.
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Brian M Rawlings
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: MSA1000 & MSA30

Neil: just to make sure you understand the whole scheme... (stop me if you know all this)

The MSA1000 is a Fibre Channel-connected RAID unit. The base unit has some drive slots, and you can expand to additional enclosures (which it sounds like you are doing). The additional enclosures are the MSA30 (formerly the 4300-series enclosures).

So, it's not like you are connecting two separate storage units to your hosts, these two units blend into one RAID storage unit that just ends up being the MSA1000. The MSA30 is just more storage bays for the MSA1000.

As Uwe says, you can pick and choose how you mirror your drives in the raid box, or you can do some mirrored drives (across chassis), plus some drives that are just a raid-5 set for less critical data. Everybody has less critical and more critical data, but it's not always easy to identify or split up. Just a thought.

Anyway, the MSA1000 is a nice little entry Fibre Channel array that I think you'll be happy with. Get to know it, but don't share your coffee with it.

Regards, --bmr
We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. (Benjamin Franklin)
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: MSA1000 & MSA30

Brian,
a minor correction, if you allow. The MSA30 is the new name for the M44xx enclosure series. The M43xx is Ultra-3/U160 - the M44xx/MSA30 is U320. Speed-wise it doesn't matter has the controllers are U3.
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neil barker
Occasional Advisor

Re: MSA1000 & MSA30

Thanks to you both for the helpful replies. Please can I can confirm the speed issue. The MSA30 is U320 and the MSA1000 is U3/160?
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: MSA1000 & MSA30

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11033_div/11033_div.html#Technical%20Specifications

""Interface Ultra3 SCSI to Hard Drives""

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http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/sharedstorage/sacluster/msa30/index.html

""The HP Modular Smart Array 30 Enclosure family is the newest HP Ultra320 SCSI disk drive storage enclosure, ...""

--

It is not a problem, because the U320 SCSI disk drives will negotiate down to the controller's speed. Just remember, as I already wrote, to make sure you have firmware V4.32 to support the MSA30:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/softwaredrivers/msa1000/msa1k_intel.html
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Brian M Rawlings
Honored Contributor

Re: MSA1000 & MSA30

Uwe: no problem with the correction, thanks for all the good information.

Incidentally, Ultra160 (160MB/s theoretical, 100-120MB/s normal/sustained) is roughly the same speed as the original 1Gb Fibre Channel, which did back-end I/O to the disks in lots of storage arrays for a couple of years after 2Gb Fibre Channel started being used on the host side.

For a cheap, entry-level array, this little MSA is not bad, not bad at all. I used to hold a grudge against them because they didn't support HP-UX. It was the last OS that they brought on-board (bizarre, just bizarre... a little passive resistance by the CPQ holdouts, I always imagined?). They finally added it to the list, however, so... now I can like the MSA units. Lovely price, decent performance and manageability. Perfect for the many small shops that I help out from time to time.

Regards, --bmr
We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. (Benjamin Franklin)
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: MSA1000 & MSA30

I haven't checked the status this morning (things can change so rapidly ;-), but I think HP-UX support is rather limited:
- special firmware
- single path only
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