Optimising access to an MSA 2312i

[Daniel Kleeman]

From the MSA 2300 reference guide:

>>> In a single-controller system, all vdisks are owned by that controller. In a dual-controller system, when a vdisk is created the system automatically assigns the owner to balance the number of vdisks each controller owns; or, you can select the owner. Typically it does not matter which controller owns a vdisk.

In a dual-controller system, when a controller fails, the partner controller assumes temporary ownership of the failed controller's vdisks and resources. If the system uses a fault-tolerant cabling configuration, both
controllers' LUNs become accessible through the partner.

When you create a vdisk you can also create volumes within it. A volume is a logical subdivision of a vdisk, and can be mapped to controller host ports for access by hosts. The storage system presents only volumes, not vdisks, to hosts. <<<

This section implies clearly that it does not matter which controller accesses a vdisk, but having set up only one vdisk on my system all ESX hosts are accessing controller A for _all_ LUNs. I want to persuade the hosts to access some LUNs (i.e. volumes) via the ports on controller B. If I remove the mappings for ports on controller A I think that I will force use of controller B, but at the expense of redundancy.

Is there a better way of using the ports from both controllers? If not it seems to be a major limitation of the MSA 2300.