DELL CN-3400 - Decom

[SimonHorwood]

hi all

A bit of a strange question but I'm in the process of decommissioning some old DELL CN-3400s, I have removed the first one from the Federation and I've been asked if the node could be used as a ESXi lab node.

Unfortunately the bulk of the storage looks to be locked out from Vmware visibilty, although the vib is installed I can't see the H730P controller in storage adaptors.

Has anyone got around this limitation as it seems a waste not to be able to use it?

Cheers

[Vinky_99]

@SimonHorwood 

It looks like the query is more related to DELL support. You can try to post it in the respective community for help! 

[SimonHorwood]

Hi

When HPE bought Simplivity in 2017 they took on support for the Lenovo DELL Cisco variants of the Simplivity platform and the part that controls access to the storage is the OVC which is defintely HPE, unfortunately the nodes are no longer in hardware support.

So I am posting in the correct area

[ErwinH]

Hi simon,

Did you try the 'Dell Custom Image for ESXi 7.0 U3 Install CD' iso for installing ESXi? We reused our old Lenovo X3650 Simplivity systems now as standalone ESXi servers.

Kind regards,
ErwinH

[SimonHorwood]

Were you able to access the Simplivity storage? I've removed one node from the Fed and restarted the OVC and can now see the Simplivity DS but I don't have right access.

From the iDRAC I can see the Storage but the ESXi couldn't see it until the OVC was booted up.

The node now thinks it is in its own Federation!

[gustenar]

You should be able to access all RAID controllers from IDRAC and delete/recreate virtual disks. 

[ErwinH]

Hi Simon,

Oh ok, then I didn't quite understand you. We didn't try that, we reinstalled the node and removed the accelerator card. For my understanding, do you want to use the decommissioned Simplivity node as a standalone Simplivity node?

Regards, ErwinH

[SimonHorwood]

The particular  DELL Perc H730p isn't picked up by the Simplivity ESXi image even though if you list the vibs it is loaded. Are you saying if I put a standard DELL ESXi image then once the array is recreated I shoiuld be able to access it?

[ErwinH · Accepted solution]

That is strange indeed! I have no experience with Dell servers myself, but I would expect the Dell custom image contains the drivers of the H730p raid controller (but i am not shure)! 

[SimonHorwood]

I will try that once the rest of the cluster has been decommissioned - I don't want to try accessing the storage from outside the production Federation incase it corrupts something

[Chrisof]

Did you get this figured out? We have 2 Dell SImplivity Boxes would like to use.

[SimonHorwood]

Hi Chrisof

Yes it appears as a normal storage with a DELL iso image - you will lose all the data already on the storage.

Local DELL Disk (naa.6847beb0f8654400209228a4127e93a4)0disk   278.88 GB datastore-AttachedNot supportedHDDSAS

Local DELL Disk (naa.61866da09fb417002092289f122c5d7f)0disk     6.55 TB Trist_DSAttachedNot supportedHDDSAS

Local DELL Disk (naa.61866da09fb417002092289e1218dc8e)0disk      272.00 GBNot ConsumedAttachedNot supportedHDDSAS

Local DELL Disk (naa.61866da09fb417002092289d1206b200)0disk100.00 GB

Cheers

Simon