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Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

 
Kenny Anderson
Advisor

ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

We're about to buy an ML530 G2, and want to fill it out with as many drives as possible.

With the 2x6 drive cage plus the optional 2-bay drive cage, that means we can have 14 drives in total. With a SA-6402, I'll like to have all 14 drives in a ADG array.

However, I'm unsure if this is possible. Does the extra drive cage act as an extension to the existing cage, or does it require a channel of it's own? If so, can I use one channel of the 6402 for the 12 drives in the standard cage, and the other channel for the 2-bay cage, or is the ML530 cage always seperated?
10 REPLIES 10
Martin Breidenbach
Honored Contributor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

The 2-bay drive cage needs its own SCSI channel. The two ML530 drive cage need two SCSI channels. So you'll have three different SCSI channels. A 6402 won't do that. You'll need a 6404.
Kenny Anderson
Advisor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

The SA-6404 is listed as having 2 internal and 4 external connectors - is it possible to loop back one of the external connects internally?

The other alternative I have is to connect the on-the-board 5i to the 2-bay drive cage, and leave the SA-6402 for the 2x6 cage. Of course, I'd have to have seperate arrays - RAID1 on the 2-bay, RAID5 on the 2x6. I was counting on having 2 disks lost to ADG, so I'd end up with the same on-line capacity. Does this sound OK?
Martin Breidenbach
Honored Contributor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

Oops.. of course (fx: sound of hand slapping at forehead). Somehow I had a picture of the NetRAID 3SI controller in my mind which has 3 internal connectors (although it has a problem with the 3rd internal connector but that's a different story) ... 6404 has only two internal connectors.

It might be possible to 'redirect' a external connector but I doubt that this will be a 'officially supported solution' and I wouldn' do it on a production server.

You can use the 5i for the 2-bay cage but this means it gets its own logical drive.

Hmmm... maybe you should verify that HP officially supports the 2-bay cage in the ML530. I can't do that at the moment.
Neal Bowman
Respected Contributor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

Kenny, the last time I looked at the ML530G2, there was no embedded 5i controller, hence having to purchase a 53XX or 64XX controller. To have the split you are looking for, you will need two controllers.

Neal
Patrick Rouse
Frequent Advisor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

The ML530 G2 does NOT have an embedded SMART Array Controller.
Martin Breidenbach
Honored Contributor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

Correct, the ML530G2 doesn't have a 5i.
Kenny Anderson
Advisor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

Argh, what a pain - although it's my fault for assuming it did have a 5i.

Both the ML530 and ML570 have been stuck on G2 for ages, whilst the rest of the ML and DL range have all been bumped to G3 - faster busses, on-the-board dual gigabit, iLo etc. Anyone know when the ML5x0's are due for a refresh?
Patrick Rouse
Frequent Advisor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

Ages meaning 1.5 years. :)
Kenny Anderson
Advisor

Re: ML530 with two-bay hotplug drive cage

Am I right in then saying there is no way to make all 14 drives in an ML530 part of a single array? I'd need to have the two 6-drive bays on one controller, and the 2-drive bay on another. Unless there's any way of making the 2 6-drive bays work as a single channel?