Array Controller Issues

[D_82]

I am in the process of building a fault tolerant dual server solution with an external expansion bay. Here is where I am at currently: The 1st 2 drives on the expansion bay hold Win2k Server, 5 additional drives in the expansion bay are set for RAID5. Both the servers have no drives in them, they are using the OS on the expansion bay. The servers are DL360's and the expansion bay is a 14 bay 3R-A2975-AA and it also has dual modular controllers in it. The servers have Smart Array 532 controllers.
My Problem:
The servers boot into the OS on the expansion bay just fine using the installed 532 controller, but I cannot load the Array Config Utility to create a logical drive for the RAID5 drives. I am getting an error when ever the ACU is atempting to access the 532 controller (stating that either there is a hardware failure or the server is a backup server which it is not). This is not makeing since to me because the server is using the same 532 controller to access the OS on the expansion bay.
I have rant he setup on POST to set up the 2 drives. The ROM sees both the drives in physical and logical states. I have upgraded the ROM to version 2.58a (which is the latest), ran the latest Compaq ROM PAQ, and verified there are no other driver issues. I have attached a screen shot of the error when attempting to run the Array Config Utility.

I need any ideas that you can think of....

Thank You in advance!

[Brian_Murdoch]

Darien,

My first thoughts are that you are trying to achieve something which is half way between Recovery Server Option (RSO) and clustering. I think I understand what you are trying to produce but you have to consider the following at least: -

1-Both ends of the SCSI chain may have the same SCSI ID's.
2-SCSI bus resets on one server (if powered on) will affect the other server and probably crash it.
3-Disk signatures might cause problems at the O/S side.
4-SCSI Termination will need to be looked at closely.

Why don't you remove one system completely (pull the scsi cable) and configure the entire system with the one Smart Array 532.
Once saved etc. the other server should be able to see the logical drive (With the other server off). The error message you are seeing regarding clusters is probably due to the SCSI bus seeing a Smart Array 532 at each end of the bus, which it won't like.

I'm sure that officially what you are trying to do is unsupported. I don't know if RSO options are still available (This used to be set up in the BIOS using Smart Array controllers going to a common storage shelf).

I'm sure these types of configuration questions have been asked many times before so you may find more information in some of the other forums such as Storage.

I know it's probably not what you want to hear but there are so many things to consider and so much that can go wrong if you allow simultaneous write access to disks from two servers without proper control (clustering).

Regards,

Brian

[D_82]

I have checked the documentation and I am trying to find where I can check the SCSI ID numbers. I cannot find where to check the SCSI ID numbers, nor a program/diagnostic utility that will tell me what ID's the components are set at. Can you tell me how to find the SCSI ID's on the server, SCSI card and external expansion bay?