Servers not able to see MSA1050 hosted SAS Volumes

[rojicnine]

Using an MSA1050 connected to 2 DL380 servers via E208e-p cards.
I used the recomended configuration of minSAS HD cables. one connection from each of the 2 controllers to each server (4 cables)
i have set up a volume on the storage array and although the volume appears in the servers Device Manager as MPE MSA 1050 SAS SCSI Disk Device, they don't appear as disks in Disks Management or Failover Cluster management utilities so i can't access them.

i'm trying to figure out if i need to manually add the hosts (servers) to the host list on the MSA.
there are the 4 SAS ports listed (2 ports on each controller) that auto populated in the list (see below).

Group   Host   Nickname  ID   Profile   Discovered   Mapped   Host   Type
-ungrouped- -nohost- InitConA1 51402ec013753cb4 Standard Yes Yes SAS
-ungrouped- -nohost- InitConA2 51402ec013752d20 Standard Yes Yes SAS
-ungrouped- -nohost- InitConB1 51402ec013753cb0 Standard Yes Yes SAS
-ungrouped- -nohost- InitConB2 51402ec013752d24 Standard Yes Yes SAS

i can't perform the action Add to Host because there aren't any hosts.
not sure why the Volumes i created aren't showing as disk on the servers, manual is fairly minimal with no setup examples.
any help would be greatly appreciated.

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@rojicnine 

Check if MPIO enabled and configured or not. If not then enable and configure it properly. You can check below best practice guide,

https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/A00015961ENW.pdf

What is Host Operating System version running ?

What is the MSA Controller firmware version?

You can also check for this,

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/high-availability/enable-support-using-raid-controllers

Try to share "HOSTS" and "MAPPING" screenshot from MSA SMU.

Also share screenshot from "Device Manager" and "Disk Management"

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

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[rojicnine]

thanks for the advice Subhajit,

here are the screen shots...

the servers use storage spaces direct to share clustered volumes between them.  i've read that S2D doesn't work with multiport-io.  will installing this feature cause any problem with the clustered volumes?

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@rojicnine 

it seems you have presented two MSA volumes named VolGPSTF and VolGPSTU. Both getting detected in Windows as we see two entry from Device Manager. How about the screenshot from "disk management" ?

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

**********************************************************************

[Cali]

The Hosts are Discovered, the Volumes are mapped and the Server sees them in the Device Manager.
At Hardware Side everything seems to be fine.

You should see them in Window Disk Manager, set them Online, and format.

[rojicnine]

disk management didn't show the MSA disks at all.  however they do show in the storage pool of File and Storage Services.

as there was only one storage pool created the MSA disks automatically added to that storage pool.  this caused a problem because the virtual disks that were shared across my storage pool cluster re-scanned to accomodate the new space and then became inaccessible to the cluster

.

Now i can't delete the MSA disks from the Pool so have had to delete the volumes, then move the MSA disks to primordial and then start again with the S2D cluster.

[rojicnine]

thanks for replying.  as i want to use the MSA disks as pass through on the hyper V hosts that i'm configuring them on i don't want to set them online here but on the VMs that they are to be attached to.  they appear in File and Storage services but not Disk Management

[rojicnine]

Thanks Sabhajit,

i used the powershell command:

Get-StorageSubSystem Cluster* | Set-StorageHealthSetting -Name "System.Storage.PhysicalDisk.AutoPool.Enabled" -Value False

i gather this stops the pool from auto selecting physical disks.

the MSA disks are now in the primordial pool and are appearing in disk management

i followed your instructions for installing MPIO but still don't get see the MPIO tab on the MSA disk properties.

are there any other steps i need to take under MPIO properties?

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1 · Accepted solution]

@rojicnine 

We can see that volumes can be seen from disk management which means one part of the issue is resolved now. You can right click and make them online.

Regarding MPIO you can follow instructions from page page 28 onwards,

https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/A00015961ENW.pdf

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

***********************************************************************

[rojicnine]

Now that the MSA SAS disks are showing in Primordial pool i can recreate the Cluster.  i don't want to use the disks in the S2D cluster because S2D doesn't accept them.  'Supported media types are SCM, SSD and HDD.'

However when i run S2D cluster validation i get errors about the SAS disks. and when i create the Cluster and try to enable clusters2d i get errors:

WARNING: 2020/10/22-15:37:07.320 Disk number 7 ({cfaffe09-11d6-a9ba-a69d-55fd1e72d766}, friendly name 'HPE MSA 1050 SAS') on node <server1> has unsupported media type
WARNING: 2020/10/22-15:37:07.321 Disk number 8 ({c948c97e-d566-5166-cbf8-b645882186dd}, friendly name 'HPE MSA 1050 SAS') on node <server1> has unsupported media type
WARNING: 2020/10/22-15:37:07.326 Disk number 7 ({cfaffe09-11d6-a9ba-a69d-55fd1e72d766}, friendly name 'HPE MSA 1050 SAS') on node <server2> has unsupported media type
WARNING: 2020/10/22-15:37:07.327 Disk number 8 ({c948c97e-d566-5166-cbf8-b645882186dd}, friendly name 'HPE MSA 1050 SAS') on node <server2> has unsupported media type
Enable-ClusterS2D : Disk eligibility failed. Review the List All Disks for Storage Spaces Direct test and verify all
disks are of a supported Media Type of SSD or HDD.

please can you tell me how to set the MSA SAS disks so that they are not to be used for S2D?

do i use switches to skip the disk checking or set the MSA disks so they're not available somhow?

Enable-ClusterS2D -CacheMode Disabled -AutoConfig:0 -SkipEligibilityChecks

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@rojicnine 

Not much idea about S2D or Software Defined Storage Solution but you can check below links to get details,

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/262fcade-c239-48d8-8b12-ab27f5edfbbe/hp-msa-2040-sas-dual-controller-as-shared-storage?forum=winserverClustering

https://community.hpe.com/t5/alliances/storage-spaces-direct-s2d-and-windows-server-software-defined/ba-p/7030578#.X5Gm4dAzZaQ

https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA6-8953ENW.pdf

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/85tzi9/storage_system_question_hpe_msa_or_storage_spaces/

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

***********************************************************************

[rojicnine]

Thanks for your help Subhajit,

as my initial question has been answered i think that this thread is now at an end.