Unused host ports on P6300 HSV340 Controllers

[R Morgan]

The HSV340 controllers (as installed) have two of the host ports connected to the fiber channel switches and the remaining two have loopback modules installed.

Does anyone know of a reason I can't connect (physical cabling, fc zoning, etc) the two remaining host ports that currently have loopback modules and make use of those additional host port paths?

I read through the 'HP P6300/P6500 Enterprise Virtual Array Installation Guide' Edition 1 - May 2011 and it did not make any mention of using the third and fourth host ports.  The cabling diagrams in the guide showed only the first two host ports in use.

Thanks.

R. Morgan

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hi,

no I do not know of a reason why.

Should work fine.

[Sebastian.Koehler]

You can use FP3/FP4 if you like. Just setup them as required for direct or fabric attach. The loopback plugs just suppress warnings if no device is attached to it. I usually use those additional ports for CA or to separate operating systems based on FPs.

Regards,
Sebastian

[Marc0]

We just received our first hsv340, without loopback modules in fc port 3&4.

So, i just wonder, what "function" can i get from these additional ports ?

Redundancy, Speed, separation for different OSes ?

Recommendations on what to do with them ?

[Johan Guldmyr]

To recommend something we'd need to know a bit about your environment. All of your thoughts could be useful. Like Related to what Sebastian wrote above, if you do not need the extra speed, redundancy or join the controllers to a different fabric, you could save them until you do get a requirement like CA (replication) or one of the previously mentioned.

[Marc0]

We'll order some loopbacks and save them for "later" use.

Thanks :)