max lun size

[Michelle Shih]

I'm new to HP-UX 11i, here's my simple questions.

What is the max size for non-LVM disk?
Is there a physical disk size limitation for LVM?
We will connect the HP server to HDS 9960 disk array, is there LUN size limitation from the HP-UX stand point?
We're going to connect the disk array with fibre channel, do I still need to use the 'virtual bus' for version 11i?
Do I get the device drive from HDS for the disk array, or do I use the HP device driver?, if so what device drvier should I use?
Thank you in advance for anyone's help.
Michelle

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Hi,
In order to answer your questions, we would need more informations:
What kind of HBA are do you have?
Are you using HP, JNI or other vendors cards?
Are you going to use Fabric mode or Arbitrated?
Direct connection or via switch...
LUN size now: what size are you thinking of?


All the best
Victor

[T. M. Louah]

There is no way to create a LUN of let say 100000 MB through SAM. There is only
space for 5 characters. There is a limitation of SAM and configuring luns of this size would have to be done through the command line using the arraycfg command.

check the arraycfg(1m) command man pages for option and syntax of that command.

[harry d brown jr]

We would also need to know if you were going to use the disks for raw database space, like oracle, informix, or sybase?

If you use file systems, do you plan on having files/filesystems greater than 2GB?
Do you plan on using mirroring, HP striping, or extent based striping?

Are you using 11i in 64bit mode?

live free or die
harry

[Michelle Shih]

Thanks to all for the responses. We will be using the HP one port PCI 2x frbre channel adapter, and will be using the fabric mode. We have two HP servers, one will be direct connected to the disk array, and the other will be via a switch to the same disk array. We haven't install the OS yet, but I believe we will be installing 11i in 64 bit mode. Yes, there will be an Oracle database using the storage, and probably will have file systems that is greater than 2 GB. I'm thinking either 14 or 36 GB lun. What it sounded like there really isn't a limitation if I'm using LVM, except I may have to use command line to configure the disk instead of SAM.

Michelle

[Krishna Prasad]

If you are not using LVM the limitation is the size of the disk.

If you are using LVM there really is no limitation.

I take it you have already purchased your fibre card. Install the software and driver for that card. If your machine is a L,N, or A I know the software you need is on the application CD's for 11.0. It is product # A5158A. Since you are using lli it should be on one of the application disks. In 11.0 there was a patch we needed for the driver PHKL_21834.

If you are using a different server the product # changes. I know HP was moving toward using the same driver for all the fibre cards with 11i., but since I am not on 11i, I am not sure if this is true.

If you go to the knowlege base of itrc and do a search on Fibre you will find documents that will help you with the correct software/driver/and patches for your fibre card.

[Wodisch]

Hello Michelle,

if the HDS is similiar to HP's XP512 (who manufactures those? ;-) then there actually IS a limit: The XPs slice *glue* the physical disks together in groups of two (mirroring) or four (RAID5) of them, and then slices the glued amount of space into equally-sized pieces. The currently biggest size of these chunks is ~14GB (AFAIK). These so-called "LUN" things can then be glued together again, creating something bigger, but only up to 36 of them (AFAIK, again).
That would set a limit of 36 * 14GB for what your HP-UX systems would see as "Physical Volume"...
Oh, and yes, you do need LVM for everything exceeding the 32bit-size-barrier (4GB/PV).

For what it's worth,
Wodisch