Supported Configuration?

[Stephen Campbell_2]

Hi

we have an MA8000 with HSG80 and Brocade switches. All servers use Emulex F/C cards.The SAN is very lightly used with a total of 4 servers attached to it. We have a Windows 2000 Server SP4 with a 730GB storageset (6 x 146GB drives) supporting a single Windows volume. We would like to expand this volume by adding a 2nd storageset of 6 x 146GB drives and concatenating the storagesets together. My question is simple:

Is having a single Windows 2000 volume of 1.4TB using two storagesets of approx 730GB each a supported configuration ?

The SAN is populated with mainly 36GB drives aside from the 14 x 146GB drives we would have were we to upgrade in this way.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks


Steve

[Steven Clementi]

Stephen:

I believe you are still limited to the 1TB unit size limitation even while concat'ing. The only way I can see you accomplishing the 1.4TB disk is by converting to dynamic and using 2 units as a volume set within Windows (or upgrade to an EVA :o) ).

I do not see any support issues with having 2 storagesets/1 volume. You just can not do it at the hardware level.

Don;t forget to replace your spare 36's with 146GB drives.


Steven

[Stephen Campbell_2]

Steve


thanks for prompt response. Much appreciated. I may not have explained it correctly in my post. We are trying to do exactly what you are saying here. Namely, concatenate two storagesets, each with 6 x 146GB drives, and span a single windows volume across the resultant 1.4TB. Each Storageset would be RAID 5 and individually less than the 1TB storageset limitation suggested by the HP docs.

I have been speaking to HP Storage people and they agree that what we are looking to do is possible and supportable. In fact, they mentioned that HP is considering supporting 300GB drives in the MA8000 with a subsequent firmware upgrade. No guarantees on that though.


Thanks again for your help.

Regards


Stephen