Adding new drives enclosures to the EVA8000

[Nahimm]

There is a EVA8000 system: 6 shelves/70 disks.
According to the plan it is required to enlarge up to 10 shelves/120 disks.
We are interested in the following issues:
- Is it possible to find out the quantity of disks in RSS in the operating system (with 70 disks)?
- Is it possible to reduce/enlarge the quantity of disks in RSS in the operating system (with 70 disks)?
- How to add 50 disks to the operating system correctly?

[Steven Clementi · Accepted solution]

- Is it possible to find out the quantity of disks in RSS in the operating system (with 70 disks)?

yes. But let it be known that it will look like this...

8 RSS's of 8 disks each and 1 RSS of 6 disks.


- Is it possible to reduce/enlarge the quantity of disks in RSS in the operating system (with 70 disks)?

The EVA will automatically adjust your RSS's according to the amount of disks you add. You have no real control over this.


- How to add 50 disks to the operating system correctly?

Before adding in the disk shelves... power them up and populate them with all of the drives. After everything has been powered up for a while, connect the first shelf to the backend network. it will probably do a code load on the EMU. Wait for it to finish.

Add the next shelf, rinse and repeat.

Always give ample time for the shelves to get updated and situation properly. Always make sure the shelf is visible in Command View without any errors before moving on to the next shelf.


With 120 disks, you will end up with 15 RSS's of 8 disks each.


Steven

[Timothy Cusson]

I agree with Steven except for adding the disk enclosure with all the dirves installed. If the EVA is running adding 14 drives at once will cause some of the drives to receive improper or duplicate disk numbers.

I would power up the disk enclosure with only one disk in slot 1.
Connect the enclosure ID cable.
Connect the A side fibre cable.
Connect the B side fibre cable.
Verify the EMU has proper shelf ID number.
Verify the one disk appears in the ungrouped disk group.

Repeat for the other enclosures.

Next, add one disk at a time and WAIT at least 1 minute, check drive shows in Ungrouped Group.
Repaest until all disks are added.

Alternate methode.

Shutdown the EVA, connect all the shelves, install all the drives, power up EVA, verify each shelf has proper ID number, verify every I/O module has proper firmware, verify all new disk are in ungrouped group.

For both methods run disk drive firmwae bundle.

[Steven Clementi]

"If the EVA is running adding 14 drives at once will cause some of the drives to receive improper or duplicate disk numbers.
"

Yes, that is a possiblity. I have not seen it happen as of yet unless there were already existing comm problems.

Always check your EVA out before doing ANY work to it. Make sure CV is reporting all is good. Check the hardware for amber lights, etc..


Steven

[Víctor Cespón]

Let me clarify two points:

The operating system on the server does not see the disks, much less the RSS. And does not need to know anything about the internal structure of the EVA.

Each disk is connected to two loops, and the adresses on each loop are fixed by the position (enclosure/bay) of each disk. The will be no conflicts unless you connect something on the wrong place.

[Timothy Cusson]

Reply To Steven re disk numbers:

I've seen EVA drives with no disk name-number, i.e. disk42, disk92. This is usually caused by adding more than one disk at a time and not waiting one minute between additions.
To correct this problem I upgroup the disk, remove the disk, re-insert the disk.

[Steven Clementi]

"...usually caused by adding more than one disk at a time and not waiting one minute between additions."

Right, exactly.

I've never seen it happen when you add a whole shelf of disks though mainly because all the disks are already spinning up and initilaized.

When adding in single disks, you certainly need to do one at a time to let it spin up, initialize and join the array.


Steven

[Timothy Cusson]

Reply to vcespon:

Let me clarify two points:

The operating system on the server does not see the disks, much less the RSS. And does not need to know anything about the internal structure of the EVA.
>>> I agree.

Each disk is connected to two loops,
>>> I agree.

and the adresses on each loop are fixed by the position (enclosure/bay) of each disk.
>>> I disagree. The disk name-number and the disk ALPA number are NOT related to physical location. Upon disk insertion, the disk does its power on self test, and then it requests a disk name-number and an Arbitrated Loop Physical Address. The EVA "gives" out these settings based on a confidential internal algorithm somewhat like DHCP.

There will be no conflicts unless you connect something on the wrong place.
>>> I disagree. The HP best practices clearly state you must wait at least one minute between online insertions of disk drives. The reason is to avoid possible disk name-number conflicts or ALPA number conflicts.

[Timothy Cusson]

Reply to Steven:

I've never seen it happen when you add a whole shelf of disks though mainly because all the disks are already spinning up and initilaized.

>>> I've never tried that method. It would save alot of time.

Tim

[Víctor Cespón]

Tim, on the EVAs 4000/6000/8000 the AL_PA addresses are fixed, there's a table that tells you what AL_PA will it get depending on the enclosure and bay.

IF you connect something on the wrong place, like a disk enclosure on ID 7, or a disk on enclosure 17 bay 13, it will get a soft AL_PA, since there's no legal AL_PA for that combination.

The name of the disk you see in Command View is completly irrelevant for the EVA (like all other names). The EVA uses only WWIDs, there's a table (MLD) relating WWIDs to friendly names (you must get a copy of it when using EVAperf for example).

Having two disks with the same friendly name can confuse you, but not the EVA. It happens sometimes and you can just rename it to whatever you want, it does not need to be Disk###.

[Nahimm]

Gentles, thank you very much for explanation!!!

How I understand, 4 additional shelfs can be connected using following way:

- shutdown EVA
- connect all the shelves
- install all drives
- power up EVA
- verify each shelf has proper ID number
- adding new disks into necessary disks groups

...and all system should work correctly?

Regards, Sergey

[Steven Clementi]

What XCS version is the EVA at?


You don't necessarily need to shut down the EVA to do the upgrade.


Steven

[Nahimm]

> What XCS version is the EVA at?
XCS v6.220

Is this method correct if we shutdown EVA?

If all shelves are filled in differently... Like that for instance:
1 shelve - 8 disks
2 shelve - 14 disks
3 shelve - 12 disks
4 shelve - 9 disks
5 shelve - 13 disks
6 shelve - 14 disks
and we need to fill in all shelves fully and add two more fully filled shelves (+2 shalves/28 disks).
What do we do in this case?
What principle should we follow when we need to add new disks in disks groups?

Thanks.

[Steven Clementi]

Well, here is how you might proceed...

1. Backup your data, full backup
2. Check Command View EVA for any errors, oddities and the like. Fix issues.

3. Install new shelves into EVA cabinet
4. Install new drives into these shelves and connect power cables. NOT THE COPPER I/O CABLES.
5. Populate the rest of the disk shelves with the extra drives... 1 disk at a time... waiting about 90 seconds in between each drive. Check Command View to make sure the disk is recognized and properly placed in the ungrouped disks catagory.
6. Once all the disks are in, make sure once again in Command View that everything is in "good" condition.
7. Proceed to add the new shelves, one at a time to the back end switches. Connect 1 I/O module, wait for it to appear in Command View and possibly update it's EMU code, than add the second I/O module.
8. Once everything is installed, Check Command View once again, make sure all is good.. and add disks to a group.


There is a document somewhere that tells you where to plug in the new shelves. I do not have it handy at the moment.


Steven

[Timothy Cusson]

> What XCS version is the EVA at?
XCS v6.220

Is this method correct if we shutdown EVA?

If all shelves are filled in differently... Like that for instance:
1 shelve - 8 disks
2 shelve - 14 disks
3 shelve - 12 disks
4 shelve - 9 disks
5 shelve - 13 disks
6 shelve - 14 disks
and we need to fill in all shelves fully and add two more fully filled shelves (+2 shalves/28 disks).
What do we do in this case?
>>> I always to the slower more cautious route. I would do the following...
- verify the EVA health; make sure no levelling is in progress. Make sure no devices have a caution.
- reboot the server thatâ s running Command View
- shutdown the EVA
- connect the 4 new disk enclosures correctly including I/O A, I/O B and shelf ID cable.
- install one disk drive in bay 1 of 14 of each disk enclosure.
- power on the EVA
- verify each disk enclosure received its proper shelf ID number by looking at the back
- start Command View, verify there is no Unmapped Hardware; no cautions on any devices, there are now 4 disks in the ungrouped disk group
- shutdown the EVA
- install all the remaining drives fill in the left columns first up to bay 11
- add the last drive to shelf 1 bay 12
- result...
1 shelve - 8 disks - 12
2 shelve - 14 disks - 14
3 shelve - 12 disks - 12
4 shelve - 9 disks - 11
5 shelve - 13 disks - 13
6 shelve - 14 disks - 14
7 shelve - 11 disks
8 shelve - 11 disks
9 shelve - 11 disks
10 shelve - 11 disks

- Run the EVA disk drive firmware bundle version May 2009 before adding the disk to the disk group.


What principle should we follow when we need to add new disks in disks groups?
>>> you have not provided disk group nor disk drive information
- If you only have one disk group add all the drives at onceâ ¦
- i.e. DG 1 â (8x15) = 120 disks Grand Total 120 disks
- Verify levelling starts
If you have two or more disk groups, then add enough disks to each group so the disk group ends up with a multiple of 8 disk drives.
i.e. DG 1 â (8x8) = 64 disks, DG 2 â (8x7) = 56 disks Grant Total 120 disks
- Verify levelling starts

[Richard_Allen]

According to the latest HP documentation, it states that to add the connector cable and then the shelves the system must be shut down. When you talk about adding the shelves to a running EVA I assume you men simply connecting to the bus cable that is already connected to the EVA. Have any of you installed the bus cable while the EVA is up and running?