MSA 2040 SAS as a JBOD enclosure?

[JB-LH]

Hello everybody. Is it possible to use an MSA 2040 SAS storage array as a JBOD enclosure? I'd like to experiment with passing all hard drives directly to the operating system.

Thanks!

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. HPE MSA 2040 Storage

2. HP MSA 2040 CLI Reference Guide

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[JB-LH]

Hello. While I'm familiar with the documents mentioned above, I'm not sure they fully answer my question.

I'm interested in knowing if my existing MSA 2040, which is SAS based, has the ability to run as a simple JBOD enclosure in its current, physical form.

If not, would it then be correct to say I'd need to "upgrade" it to a 2050, which would effectively "downgrade" it to a JBOD enclosure?

https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/PSN1012683839USEN.pdf

Thanks!

[sbhat09]

Hello @JB-LH 

The link you posted is about the disk enclosure which may be used as J-BOD. But I don't think the MSA system as a whole can be.

Regards,
Srinivas Bhat

[JonPaul]

@JB-LH 
FYI - support_s  is a BOT and not very helpful sorry about that
Using the 2040 SAS system as a JBOD would not be the best use of the 2040 SAS system but if it is what you have to play with, the best way would be to create Linear No-RAID disk-groups/VDISKs of each individual drive.  I think you can create 32 linear disk-groups/VDISKs but it might be 16.  Then make a single volume on each drive and default map the volume from only 1 controller, possible limit it to a single port (mapped to all hosts).  Your host will now see each disk individually as presented from the MSA 2040 with a single path.
Note you lose the hardware RAID capabilities and the mulitple paths.