How do I know I have RAID1 & which hard disk slot is the Master - upper or lower?

[Michael1]

Hi,

How do I know what RAID configuration is on my blade? From a reset of my BL460 I see in the iLO that there is a 'Slot 0 Smart Array E200i controller (64MB, v1.78) 1 Logical Drive'. From reading http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/arraycontrollers/index.html I understand that the support RAID levels are 0, 1, 1+0 standard, RAID 5 optional. I've been told RAID 1 is present but I'd like to see it with my own eyes.

In each blade there are two slots for a harddisk, an upper and a lower one. So if I have a blank harddisk in the upper slot and a valid harddisk in the lower slot is it correct to say that the valid disk will fill the blank disk with a copy of the valid disk? Is it also correct to say that if the harddisks were in the opposite slots the blank disk would still be filled correctly? What happens in the case where both disks are filled but with different data? Does the hard disk in the upper slot fill the lower slot or vice versa?

Kind regards,
Michael

[Gary Benavides Meza]

To see the array you use the HP Array Configuration Utility. If you have a disk a valid disk on the lower slot, don't change it to the upper slot, because if you have a raid that hard drive gets an SCSI ID on this bay if you move it, it would have a different ID on a different bay and will not work. Do not populate a second disk with data on it since it might corrupt the data on the working hard drive.

ACU
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=1121516&prodNameId=3288134&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-3ba3b155dd784a4f8862403056

[Michael1]

Hi,

Many thanks Gary for the reply. I found it quite helpful. Yes I can clearly see that our Windows 2003 blade is RAID-1 now using the Windows based HP Array Configuration Utility.

We also have a number of RHEL blades though. How can I see if these are RAID-1 or not? The ACU works locally (on the windows blade) and remotely which I understand to mean can be accessed remotely rather that work on remote blades. Would that be correct? In short, how can I check out the Linux blades to confirm that they are RAID-1 or not?

-Michael

[TTr]

> The ACU works locally (on the windows blade) and remotely which I understand to mean can be accessed remotely rather that work on remote blades. Would that be correct?
Yes this is correct.

> how can I check out the Linux blades
ACU runs on Linux as well.
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/software-management/acumatrix/sw-drivers.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

[Michael1]

Many thanks TTr for the reply. The Linux links don't work though on supplied HP link.

Would it be possible to run the Linux ACU staight from a USB stick? I feel this would be useful as I would prefer not to have to install the Linux ACU on each and every blade if I could help it but instead use it as and when required without affecting any installations.

Secondly from the first reply I understood that it was mentioned that it was not good practice to swap the harddisks around between the upper and lower slots in a BL460 blade in a c7000 chassis. My colleagues here did just that while the BL460 blade was in a c3000 chassis and all seemed OK. Both harddisks were working as a RAID1 before and after the swapover.

-Michael

[TTr]

> The Linux links don't work
I see.. Hopefully a downed redirect server and not dead URL link.
> Both harddisks were working as a RAID1 before and after the swapover.
I have not tried it with the SmartArray but typically with larger disk arrys this is the case. All RAID information is on the disks and it does not matter where the disk is plugged in, the raid controller reads the disks and binds them in raid groups accordingly.
> Would it be possible to run the Linux ACU staight from a USB stick?
Can't tell. It depends how the ACU installes on Linux, whether it is a self contained software or it needs to be installed within the OS (kernel drivers etc.).

[Joshua Small_2]

The ACU can be run from the HP Smartstart CD under the "maintain server" section.
You can run this CD directly as boot from CD, or you can convert the image to a USB key.

[Michael1]

>or you can convert the image to a USB key.

Thanks Joshua. I have SmartStarts on CD. How do I convert the image to a USB key. I'd really like to be able to do that. Do I just copy the CD files to the USB stick or is there more to it than that? Presumably booting up from the USB stick just involves having the USB stick in place before the blade restarts?
-Michael

[Michael1]

Hi again,

In passing I managed to put SmartStart on to a USB stick and run it from the USB stick with the help of the downloads section of the HP ProLiant Essentials Foundation Pack

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantessentials/foundationpack/downloads.html

Since we were on a roll a colleague then deleted SmartStart and opened g4l.iso with winrar and copied all the files to the USB stick root directory, then ran syslinux e: to get an operating system and ghosted the blade image back onto the USB stick - handy for dual disk failure recovery.

The HP USB Key Utility for Windows did make the USB stick HP compatible in the first place.

-Michael