MSA1000 Full plan to add MSA30 - Advice and/or hints ?

[Nivek]

We have a an MSA1000 with 14 146GB drives (fully populated). The drive configuration consists of an 8 Drive 1.02 TB ADG array, a 70 GB Raid 0+1 and an additional 69GB (or so) Raid 0+1 - Then 2 drives as spares.

The MSA1000 is split between 2 servers. One (server #1) Windows 2000 Server that utilizes the 1.02 TB and a 70GB logical drive. The 2nd server (server #2) is Windows 2003 and utlizes the 2nd Raid 0+1 logical drive.

The 70 GB logical drives have plenty of free space and are used to stored SQL Server backups and/or DB's.

The 1.02 TB logical drive is used to store DICOM images. This drive is nearly full and we would not like to have to archive data off.

The DICOM storage application allows for multiple storage locations (drive mappings).

Our current plan is to add a Dual Bus MSA 30 (with 300GB SCSI Drives) to the MSA1000 and configure a 2tb logical drive to be utilized/assigned to Server #1. Then use this logical drive as a second DICOM Store.

I have read that you can power off the MSA1000 - plug the MSA30 into the MSA1000 - power up the MSA30 - wait for about 30 seconds before powering on the MSA1000. Then you should be ready to continue.

At this point will we be able to use the array utility to configure the MSA30 as we hope?

Thank you,


Since this is our first adventure with this device I was hoping someone could provide some experience pointers.

We'll have 2 backups before we begin to implement.

[Uwe Zessin]

Last time I checked, the MSA1000 does even support a hot-add of an MSA30.

[Mike Povall]

Uwe is correct on the hot add. I have done a hot add of single bus MSA30 shelves to an MSA1000 and everything worked fine. Connect everything up first and then power on the MSA30. The controllers will show storage box hot added. When I did it I added the disks to the empty shelf after it had been recognised by the MSA1000 rather than loading the shelf before powering up and each disk was then hot added by the MSA1000 as it went along.

Then use the ACU as normal.

Regards, Mike.