MSA30/Smart Array 6i: Uninstall of Multipath Software: Negative Effects?

[SSAKUSEISHA]

Hello,

I discovered that I installed the wrong MPIO software and need to uninstall it. Will there be any negative effect on access to external storage? I think the server will still be able to connect to the external storage, but just want to see if anyone can confirm this.

The MPIO software I need to uninstall is "HP Smart Array Multipath Software Version 2.0D". This has been applied to the Smart Array 6i driver that connects to both local storage and to MSA30 storage.

The MPIO software that I need to install is "HP MPIO Basic Failover for MSA1000/1500 Disk Arrays v1.4" in order to connect to  external storage on a MSA1000 via HBA cards.

More details:

I have a Proliant DL380G4 server with Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 installed connected both internally and to MSA30 external storage via SmartArray 6i (firmware v2.68). There are three mirrored logical drives onboard the server and four logical drives on the MSA30.

I installed two FCA2214 HBA cards (firmware v3.03.25) in order to use an SSP-assigned logical drive on board a StorageWorks MSA1000 array (firmware v1.86)  with dual array controllers (firmware v4.48) and dual MSA 2/8 FC switches (firmware v3.2.0). There are four other servers that are connected to the MSA1000.

After installing the two HBA cards, I wanted to configure redundant active/passive connectivity to the MSA1000. Unfortunately, I installed HP Smart Array Multipath Software Version 2.0D, which seems to work only for connection to MSA500 devices.

Now, in Device Manager on the server, I see an object under System Devices called "Smart Array Multi-path Device-Specific Module" which has applied the redundancy to the SmartArray 6i adapter. I draw this conclusion because, when I click on SCSI and RAID Controllers and then Smart Array 6i, I see a tab called something like "Redundancy Settings", which shows the SA6i controller and logical disks attached to the SA6i, including the disks on board the MSA30.

What I would like to do is to uninstall "HP Smart Array Multipath Software Version 2.0D" and instead install "HP MPIO Basic Failover for MSA1000/1500 Disk Arrays v1.4". Once I do that, I expect to see in Device Manager/System Devices not "Smart Array Multi-path Device-Specific Module" but instead "Modular Smart Array Multi-path Device-Specific Module". Also, I expect to see, in Windows Disk Management, only one path to the logical drive on the MSA1000 rather than the two that I see now.

Will uninstalling the Smart Array multipath s/w may cause a problem with connectivity to the logical drives on the SA6i controller? When rebooting the server, I see system event log entries from mpio saying that \Device\MPIODisk0 through \Device\MPIODisk7 were created. This is a cause of concern to me, though I suspect once the Smart Array multipath s/w is uninstalled the connectivity to the logical drives will still be there since it is only the multipath software that will be uninstalled.

[SSAKUSEISHA · Accepted solution]

For anyone who is interested, the work was completed successfully. There were no problems at all with connectivity to the MSA30 and MSA1000 devices.