8400 w/RAID

[Adam Hicks]

Ok, a little help here... Since I am still pretty new to this I have a question. I am required to set up an Rp8400 with 450GB of useable disk space running a RAID 0+1 configuration (the system disks need to be mirrored), and I need to do this without MirrorDisk... So I think by placing 450GB of disk in the 8400 and 450GB of disk in a VA7110, that a would be able to do this. Do I need any kind of Smart Array Controller or RAID Controller? -- Any help or suggestions on how to effectively Implement this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Definitions:

Raid 1. Exact mirror copy, mirror/ux can do this with up to two mirrors.
Raid 0. Striping. The OS can do that.

Raid 0+1: Mirror ux can not do that by itself.

To achieve your requirement you have no choice but to configure it on the array. You are probably better off doing it all on the array and just presenting the disk to your 8400 server.

I believe the default setup for the VA7110 is raid 5 but it can be configured to present as raid 0+1.

SEP

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Adam,

You're not going to be able to do this. There are only four disk slots on an 8400. No way you can get to 450 with just 4. Also in that case you *would* need a RAID controller.

So you're RAID array will have to be external.
All a VA7110 needs for controllers are standard 1 or 2GHZ Fibre Channel controllers like the A6795A. All the RAID setup is done on the VA7110 itself. You'll want 2 controllers & they would connect to two separate I/Fs on the 7110.

HTH,
Jeff

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi (Again),

To add further to Jeff, you will be using two slots for OS disks which means you will be left with only two slots. You don't have a choice there. Leave aside LVMs incapability to support 0+1 configuration.

On the other hand, you need to have Mirror/UX loaded anyway because you want your systems disks to be mirrored. RP8400 has to have 11i. If you purchased Enterprize Edition, it would have come with Mirror/UX.

Interesting thing about VA systems are that they manage the RAID themselves depending on the usage of the data. If the data is frequently used, it is placed on RAID0+1 otherwise it will be on RAID5.

Look at the storage section for the choices you have at www.hp.com.

-Sri

[Tim D Fulford]

Hmm..

You can certainly have 450 GB extrnally to the rp8400 (though I'd avoid VA7110...) You will need fibre channel mas storage device (fibre card). The va7110 certainly does hardware raid

Regards

Tim

[Tim D Fulford]

I thought this question looked familear..

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=614667

Tim

[Uwe Zessin]

The default for the VA series is RAID1+0, but the array can be set to AUTORAID mode. If the array is filled to a certain degree and data isn't used often, it is stored as RAID5DP (DP=double parity) to win some disk space.