EVA5000 parts

[Christian--]

Hi! For learning purposes, I'm trying to build an EVA3000 or EVA5000 from used(cheap) parts. So from my understanding I'd need the following parts:

- HSV100 or 110 controller (Do I need a second one?) with cache, battery and power supplies

- M5314A Drive Shelfs with A and B FC-IO modules, emu and power supplies

- Standard LC-LC fiber optic cables for hooking up the shelfs FC-IO modules

- Standard LC-LC fiber optic cables for connecting the HSV to the SAN Switch (Can I use an old Compaq 2/16 SAN Switch? (P#287055-B21)

- Standard RJ-45 (straight-through or crossover?) cable for the EMU to the HSV when I'm just connecting one shelf

So what exactly are those Terminators for? On the attached picture there is 2xFP,1xMP and 4xDP, please tell me, what those are for.

Regards, Christian

[Uwe Zessin · Accepted solution]

I am not sure you can initialize a system with only one controller, but I have never tried.

An EVA-3000/-5000 will work fine with a 2/16 (I do have 2 of those in my lab and they are still supported).

You cannot use a simple RJ45-RJ45 cable to connect a single controller with a drive shelf. You do need a top/bottom terminator, an RJ-45 cable, a special RJ-45 cable in 'Y'-for for both controllers and at least one of those old 'junction boxes'.

T(erminator)
|
J-----Y(to both controllers)
B-----RJ45/RJ45 (to drive encl.)
|
T

[Christian--]

Hello and thanks for you reply!

As for the cabling, do you think something like this would work:
http://tinyurl.com/c6jdsl
The original parts are horribly expensive (150$ only for the Y-Adapter)
What exactly do you mean with the "junction box"?
Do I understand it right, that one Drive Shelf EMU has two RJ45 ports and the highest and lowest in the rack is terminated with that plug? Thanks in advance,
Christin

[Uwe Zessin]

I don't know what protocol is running on the EAB (enclosure address bus) and whether this box will do it, sorry.

A photo of the JB is attached - it was used on the very first models of EVA-5000 / -3000 and later replaced by a more flexible solution.

The drive shelf EMU has 3 RJ45 ports, but only the lowest is used for the EAB - they are NOT daisy-chained. The RJ45-RJ45 cable goes from the EMU to one of the two RJ45 you can see on the photo.

The RJ45 plug you see on the left side would go to another JB which could go to another and so on. The last JB will have the bottom terminator(plug); Top/Bottom terminators are different. Each JB has two RJ45 connectors for either a drive shelf or the Y-cable coming from the controllers.

[Christian--]

Ok, now I got it. I can use the JB (old) or the Shelf ID Expander Cable (new) and these have to be terminated. Does anybody know where to get these parts at a reasonable price? Do you know anything about the 7 fiber ports on the Controller? Thank you !!

[Víctor Cespón]

The EAB bus is used to numerate the enclosures, so each one knows it's physical position.

The EAB cables are NOT network cables, you must use the HP parts, also, both terminators are needed.

You need minimum 8 disks to create a disk group.

[Uwe Zessin]

> Do you know anything about the 7 fiber ports on the Controller

I've disassembled a number of EVAs and successfully put them together at different locations ;-)

FP1+FP2 are the host ports which go to the Fibre channel switches.

MP is the "Mirror Port" which is used by both controllers to communication and data duplication of writeable cache data.

The remaining 4 ports form two dual-loops. The disk drives are dual-ported and each I/O module (A/B) is connected to one loop.

If you are rich or get many parts for free, you can build an EVA-5000 with 18 disk shelves and 240 disk drives ;-)