P4300 Upgrade Help

[Launceston Church Gramm]

Hi all,

We have a 4.8tb P4300 Start SAN solution that we installed at the end of 2009.  Being an under-resourced school we did what we could but we soon worked out that putting our two nodes into network RAID wasn't going to give us enough storage space so was forced to assign one physical host (ProLiant DL380g6) per node.  Since then we have not carried out any firmware or software updates.

I'm now trying to do all the updates but am coming unstuck as to what to do exactly.  I have read a number of posts on these boards and searched the HP site and Google for the answers I need but am only getting half the story.

What I have done so far;

* Backed up all my VMs resigin on SAN01 (the first node)

* Downloaded and installed v10 of the CMC to my machine

* Attempted to upgrade SAN firmware using both the SmartDVD v10.10 and the ProLiant Service Pack 2012.10.0 (both of which didn't work)

* Pressed on and installed all available updates through the CMC to SAN01, this took it from version 8.1 to 9.5 (oddly not v10)

* I have not begun to look at my second node until I work out all the kinks on the first node

So, what I can't work out;

* How do I update the node BIOS?

* How do I update the node firmware?

* How do I load v10 of the SANiQ software when it says that 9.5 is the most current? 

There's probably a lot more and I know that these nodes should be in RAID but I don't have that option until the school can afford to let me buy more storage.  I don't do this stuff everday so assume I know nothing (which probably isn't too much of a stretch)!

[danletkeman]

You might have click "stay at this version" in the CMC. In this case it will only install patches. Otherwise if you click download it will download all of the latest versions.

The CMC also handles the firmware updates for the nodes. They may be a little out of date, but are certified working ones, so I would just leave it at that.

[Launceston Church Gramm]

Thanks danletkeman - I think I have worked a couple things out.  Although I can't find a clear ruling on it, I'm thinking that because our P4300 is G1 that it actually won't run v10, hence why it won't upgrade beyond 9.5.  I tried to run the v10 quick recovery DVD and it threw up an error about the hardware. 

The bios is still sitting at version 016 (from 2008) - I can't find anyway to upgrade that, if there even is a way to upgrade it.  If bios is also done by the CMC then that's that, I've done all the available updates that I can.

Management bought the solution whilst I was annual leave back in late 2009, they got it cheap obviously because HP were trying to get rid of them.  Hopefully I'll get a different SAN solution in next years budget!

Cheers!

[danletkeman]

Yes you are correct, version 10 is not supported on the G1 hardware

http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Around-the-Storage-Block-Blog/Built-for-virtualization-Introducing-the-new-HP-StoreVirtual/ba-p/125057

[Steve Burkett · Accepted solution]

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@Launceston Church Gramm wrote:

The bios is still sitting at version 016 (from 2008) - I can't find anyway to upgrade that, if there even is a way to upgrade it.  If bios is also done by the CMC then that's that, I've done all the available updates that I can.

To check the latest firmwares your hardware will run:

• Login to HP Storage Single Point of Connectivity Knowledge (SPOCK) site here.
• Go to StoreVirtual/Lefthand on the Other Hardware menu on the left side
• Open the 'P4900, P4300 & P4500 Firmware Compatibility Matrix' .PDF

In there it lists the components, firmware versions you should be on, and usually a brief note on how to update them.

But yeah, looks like us guys on G1 hardware are out of luck with regard to Lefthand OS 10.0. Boo!

[Launceston Church Gramm]

Thanks Steve, that's very helpful, I'll do the BIOS upgrades as soon as I can - it seems I have a couple versions to do in a particular sequence.

Cheers!

[Putra-san]

Dear All,

First of all, excuse my lack of knowledge related to HP P4300 series.
I have two nodes (4300 and 4300 G2) and the management decided to go with software v9.5.

Since the CMC is being blocked from accessing the internet, the only method I have is to install CMC 9.5 using the iso.

Since one of the question mentioned that he's unable to update the lefthand firmware (BIOS, RAID cntler, etc) using HP SPP,  may I know how/what is the way to update it?

I attached the current software version if that will help.