Does HP StorageWorks MSA30 15K U320 work with Hp DL385 G1 Servers for providing iSCSI SAN storage?

[vastika1]

Hello,

I am very new in the world of servers. I am studying VMware vSPhere 5.1 and I brought HP DL 385 G1 Servers from ebay for my practice. Now I need to add a storage device to my infrastructure. I saw HP StorageWorks MSA30 with 14 x 73GB SCSI 15K U320 listed on ebay in very cheap price. However, I do not know whether that storage device fits to HP Proliant DL 385 G1 Servers for iSCSI SAN. 

If these two units match, what other device I need to buy. Likewise, what other storage device work with HP DL 385 G1 for iSCSI SAN? Since I am a student and my motive is just to have a small lab for me to practice vmware vSphere Virtualization, I cannot spend a lot of money on a Storage device. Please suggest me those which fits my need and requirements.

For your information, I do not have any other devices besides three HP Proliant DL 385 G1 Servers right now.

Any suggestion would be appreciated. I am not an expert, just a student who is very new in this field so any advice in a simple explaination will be highly welcomed. 

[vastika1]

Somebody please help me....

[Mark Matthews]

Hi, the MSA30 is not a SAN it is a SCSI based disk enclosure (you may also hear them being called Disk Shelves)

This can be used to connect to an array controller inside an HP server for additional storage to the internal disks.

Or it can be connected behind a SAN unit for additional storage to whatever the main unit holds.

To do iSCSI you'd need something in the P2000 or 4000 range.
There was a version of the MSA1500 (called the 1500i) that I think was the first iSCSI based SAN that HP made (might be wrong there)

Two main types of SAN are Fibre based and iSCSI based.

Fibre is still used quite a lot but the 'industry' seems to be moving to iSCSI in general.

There are also earlier versions of the P2000 called MSA2000 (like the MSA2012i) etc which are iSCSI based.

For training purposes I think any of this kit would be very expensive to buy though.
Dont forget you'll also need ethernet switches to link everything together too...

Hope this helps a little.

Mark...

[Stan Gobien]

Like the previous posters already said the MSA30 is just an enclosure (a disk shelf, a JBOD). I once installed a MSA1500 fibre channel SAN that used a MSA30 for the disks. On the newer SAN solutions, starting from MSA2000, P2000 and P4000 the controller(s) fit in the same enclosure as the main disk cabinet. On MSA1500 this was seperate.

If you can find a MSA1500 (fiber) you can use it together with the MSA30. However the MSA1500 doesn't have webbased management, the management is via the HP ACU software over the fiber connection (so on a pphysical machine not a virtual one). Perhaps on the ISCSI model it goes through the ISCSI connection, and you can machin it also on virtual macine, not sure about this, i have never seen a MSA1500i myself. An MSA2012i comes with webbased management and the controller fits in the same encloure where you can add 12 LFF or 24 LFF disks (SAS or SATA disks). Same goes for the P2000 G3 seriers, you can choose from iSCSI or fiber.

If it is just for testing you can just setup a PC with FreeNAS and then use NFS or iSCSI to configure datastores in the vmware environment.