rx2660 Built-in RAID Question

[Greg Porter_3]

Hi, I just bought a rx2660. I got it with the AD397A Smart Array P400 Controller. I got 2 146 GB internal drives. This was to be factory integrated, so that the 2 drives were in a mirrored RAID configuration. It came with 11.23 preloaded.

So during BIOS, if I break the boot, and go into the RAID controller, I see both drives, and that they are in a mirror. If I move from one drive to another in the RAID BIOS, the blue blinky "find me" lights on both drives follow the BIOS prompt.

The question I have is that during normal drive operations, ONLY the activity light of the first drive (slot 8) ever blinks. Slot 7 (the mirror) never shows activity. Is it really mirrored? Is it really working? How do I tell? I have never seen a hardware RAID controller that acted like this. All the ones I have ever seen before, ALL members of the mirrored RAID group light's flash in unison when mirrored. I expect to see both activity LEDs flash in sync.

Can someone confirm that this is "normal" for one of these RAID controllers?

Yes, I did the expected reading of manuals, google searches, etc. before bothering you guys.

Thanks.

[Torsten.]

Hi,

I have not seen this in action yet, but to check the RAID status run

# sasmgr get_info -D /dev/sasd0 -q raid

This will give you information about the configured RAID(s).

(adjust /dev/sasd0 if needed)

[Greg Porter_3]

Thanks for the quick reply.

No, the command doesn't work:
# sasmgr get_info -D /dev/sasd0 -q raid
ERROR: No devices connected.

This one does, though:
# sasmgr get_info -D /dev/sasd0
Driver Name : sasd
Bundle Version : B.11.23.03
Product Number : AB419-60001
Hardware Path : 0/1/1/0
Health of HBA : ONLINE
PCI Vendor ID : 0x1000
PCI Device ID : 0x0054
PCI Subsystem Vendor ID : 0x1312
PCI Subsystem ID : 0x103c
PCI Revision ID : 0x0001
Max. PHYs supported : 8
Max. IO size : 1048576
*********************************************************************
***** HBA Specific information
*********************************************************************
HBA state : READY
Driver firmware dump available : NO
Driver firmware dump timestamp : N/A
Firmware Revision : 1.16.0.0

So I'm confused.... Are you saying that it likely is NOT in a mirror? Even though the RAID controller BIOS shows it is? I've never heard of a hardware RAID device that you had to configure from the OS.

What do I do to fix it?

[Torsten.]

The output should be similar to this:

# sasmgr get_info -D /dev/sasd0 -q raid Tue Dec 12 02:45:03 2006 ---------- PHYSICAL DRIVES ----------LUN dsf SAS Address Enclosure Bay Size(MB) /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0 0x500000e012691cb2 1 3 70007 /dev/rdsk/c1t3d0 0x500000e0126926d2 1 4 70007 /dev/rdsk/c1t4d0 0x500000e01122d7d2 1 5 34732 /dev/rdsk/c1t7d0 0x500000e01263fcc2 1 8 34732 ---------- LOGICAL DRIVE 4 ---------- Raid Level : RAID 1 Volume sas address : 0x611d224fa01c82 Device Special File : /dev/rdsk/c1t10d0 Raid State : OPTIMAL Raid Status Flag : ENABLED Raid Size : 34000 Rebuild Rate : 20.00 % Rebuild Progress : 100.00 % Participating Physical Drive(s) : SAS Address Enc Bay Size(MB) Type State 0x500000e01268e312 1 1 70007 SECONDARY ONLINE 0x500000e012691ee2 1 2 70007 PRIMARY ONLINE

I'm reading the manual...
http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90041/index.html

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Greg,

I think Torsten was assuming you had the older SAS HBA which came in the rx3600/6600, and used the sasd driver when in fact it looks like you have the PCIe SmartArray controller which uses the ciss driver. Instead of sasmgr you should be using saconfig:

Identify your RAID controller using:

ioscan -kfnd ciss

Then query the config of the RAID controller with:

saconfig /dev/cissN

As to your original question, remember:

- You might not be doing much write IO to the root/boot disks anyway.
- The P400 has cache so some IOs are probably getting serviced there.
- Depending on the RAID algorithm used, reads might generall all be from one disk anyway (certainly with Mirrordisk, you always saw a lot more read activity from one disk in the pair)

Have you actually tried running a big write to one of the root filesystems and looking at the activity lights then (obviously be careful not to fill up something critical) - why not use dd to generate a big sequential write to /var/tmp if you have the space...

HTH

Duncan

[Torsten.]

Thanks Duncan.

I cannot read as fast as they develop new controllers.

First interesting information is a "ioscan -fn".

If the disks are connected to the P400, you should see a /dev/cissX devicefile for the controller.

Now the sautil/saconfig command will give you the details, e.g.:

# sautil /dev/ciss5 -s

# saconfig /dev/ciss5


This is the appropriate manual link:

http://docs.hp.com/en/J6369-90037/index.html

[Greg Porter_3]

Well, this is embarassing to say...

I figured that since this was a completely brand new server, with a default load of 11.23 on it (which I got media for with it), that it wouldn't hurt anything to reboot it, stop the boot and play around in the raid controller bios.

So I did. I then decided just to throw the existing volume away. Then I'd set up another and see if it behaved the same.

So I did.

And then I discovered that DVD drives are not standard equipment on rx2660's. So I killed my boot drive and cannot reload.

Geez, you'd think that salesmen would suggest buying a darn DVD drive. He was happy to sell me DVD media. Too bad I can't read it.

Anyway, thanks for the help, when I get to where I can boot again (grr) I'll try the ciss device.

[Torsten.]

Bad luck!

See the options page. Here you will find that the configured RAID is an option - none, RAID1, 5 or 6.
The DVD option is also there.

http://h20341.www2.hp.com/integrity/cache/452309-0-0-0-121.html