virtual replicator disk expansion

[Rocky_8]

Hi,
Several customers, where we installed virtual replicator, have problems with the product.
This pertains to the mixing of Windows driver letters, where we put L:\ on a Vdisk and after booting it becomes E:\ !! this is a disaster for all the user shares.
Secondly they have problems expanding existing Vdisk when there is enough space left in the pool.
Disks have not been signed by diskadmin during installation.
I would appriciate it if there is anyone with a good tip regarding these problems.

thanks,

rmk

[Jan-Erik Karlsson_2]

Why isn't the disks signed and given
a drive letter in disk management?

[Tarmo Linnam?gi]

Hey

About drive letters - when you assign drive letter from the VR it stays - when it appears as different letter later you have to change this from the disk management (Windows) as well as from the VR.

Define enough space - VR wants to have some of the space free for the snapshots. So my experience says that this is ~25-30% what it wants to keep free.


Tarmo

[Rocky_8]

Tamo,

The servers take on another driver letter which cannot be changed back to the original driver letter set in VR.
The storage used is a RA4100 by Compaq, attached to two FC_AL switches.
I have heared this has something to do with the windows admin shares on VR disk ?

The expansion disablilty is also a very weird problem.

thnx

[Rocky_8]

Jan Erik,

its absolutely forbidden to sign raw disks coming from SAN storage for instance.
The disk admin should remain closed and a reboot is the best way to make the new disk visible to the host.
Once VR takes control of the raw storage, VR will only allow RAW unounted and unsigned drives into the pool, Windows will not see the disk anymore untill you create new VR Vdisks.

Look in the VR sysadm guide for more details.
The above is very much mandatory,

regards,

rmk

[otto warlich]

Hello Rocky,

You must use persistent binding on your HBA.
Because Windows gives the HBA an ID. When the server reboots, this ID is in order of seen by Windows. With persistent binding you deside which ID it must have. Warning: use the ID you configured VR with otherwise you must reconfigure VR.
VR can only use 70% of the Pool space. Maybe this is your problem.

With regards,

Otto Warlich

[Martin Stanjer]

Dear All,

I am very interested in this thread because changing drive letters is exactly the problem I am having on an MSA1000 whilst adding new LUNs and VR pools.
Each new pool has one member disk and contains only one virtual disk.
I have just upgraded secure path to 4.0C and VR to 3.0B sp1. Windows 2k to sp4.

Otto:
How is the persistent binding established? Do we simply change drive letters using windows disk manager? (officially forbidden with VR). In any case, I assume the problem is caused because the VR disks are offline at boot, so windows would assign letters in order of coming on-line even after changing them this way?

I am afraid I did write a signature (but not format) using windows disk manager because VR would not see the new drives despite many re-boots. Is there any way to delete the signature if neccesary without deleting the LUN from the Array?

I have installed FC HBA drivers from the latest prolient support pack, over the one on the latest MSA software support disk. Could this be a problem?

Rocky:
Regarding the 70% capacity limit, it's to allow for snapshots and is a policy in the registry that can be altered. This is explained in the VR admin guide. However, windows will continue to receive event warnings about lack of space, which cannot be supressed unfortunately.

Regards,

Martin.

[otto warlich]

Hello Martin,

Persistent Bindings can be set by the lputilnt.exe utility (Windows).

With regards,

Otto Warlich

[Martin Stanjer]

Thanks Otto.
Unfortunately, applying persistent bindings has not fixed the problem, but thanks for the advise. (I bound the WWPNs). I am sorry I don't think it's possible for me to assign you any points, because I did not start the thread. Actually I have just started a new thread on the subject, so any further help you can give will be rated if you reply to that! (Do you know if Rocky fixed his case of this problem?)
Regards,
Martin.

[Rocky_8]

Martin,

Been on holidays, sorry for the late reply.
No i have not been able to fix the problem, sorry.
I still have strange behavior at a customers site, that when he reboots a server, the drive letter changes from V:\ to E:\.
From this pint on the drives can aslo no longer be subject to enlargment with the wizard for volume expansion.
All his user share are then no longer valid.
We have not been able to track down the problem.
The customer will phase out VR ! and no longer use it ;-(

cheers,

Rocky

[Brian Bleijenberg]

Hi Rocky

Problem solved (-;?

Greetz and CU
Brian
(we drinken er nog 1)

[Martin Stanjer]

Rocky.
Not using VR anymore seems like a very good solution! However, I think I may have an answer to the problem, although I have not finished testing, or deployed the solution on a live server yet.
I dont know what versions of secure path, VR, and OS service pack you are using, and I know you are not using the same controller as me (msa1000) but I would suggest using an earlier version of whatever HBA driver you have. (which HBAs are you using?) I'll give more details when I'm sure this is consistent,(at the moment it seems to be working fine). Meanwhile you may wish to experiment in this area.
Regards,
Martin.