Using alternative drives in HP P4500 G2

[Aaron Weller]

Does anyone know if it is possible to use alternative drives in the HP P4500 G2 SAS Virtualization starter pairs?  We have some old 15k SAS nodes we are decomissioning and would like to see if we can change them over to nearline SAS (or something close to that).  We need some slower cheaper storage, and don't want to have to buy a whole lot of new nodes if we can re-use these ones.

Is there any restriction on the drives that can be used?

[oikjn]

I don't know about that, but if you have the virtualization starter pack, I thought that comes with a 10-pack of VSA licenses which if you have the available hardware, you can easily turn them into VSA nodes.

[Aaron Weller]

Hi oikjn,

Yes, we have the free 10 VSA licenses with every pair (so now we have quite a few VSA licenses).  However the problem with these is they only support 10TB max storage per license/VM.  This means the most effective pricing (per GB) you can get is to use a 4 bay server with 4 x 4TB RAID 5 (which gives 12TB usable per node/U).  This is nowhere near as efficient as say using the 12 bay chassis that is the P4500 G2, which would give 40TB usable per node (20TB per U) when using 4TB drives.  

We already run such a setup for our backup SAN (we replicate to it), and while it peforms ok I probably wouldn't be put live data on it.

[oikjn]

I can't say I've used 4TB drives, but if you are so concerned about physical density, you can always run more than one VSA on a single host as long as the underlying storage can handle it.  I've actually found it helpful to install a better raid card on a larger host with two VSAs rather than two small hosts with a single VSA.  The only issue you have to worry about is how you stripe the cluster so that you make sure the loss of a single host doesn't take down your cluster availability.  I wouildn't do this for my tier1 data, but it works fine for my bulk storage needs.

[David_Tocker]

I dont see why this would'nt work.

AFAIK the software tacks via LAN MAC.

So you should be able to stuff it full of 4GB sata drives and reload the software and it should not blink an eye - you will just need to 'reactivate' it.

I am however not sure if there are any limits in the software...

I say try it....

Regards.

David Tocker.

[HowardShaw]

I was curious if you were able to get this to work.  We have 3 nodes of P4500 w/ 300GB Drives we're hoping to swap out for 600's and then reimage the nodes.  Any updates?

[Chris Kelley]

We are attempting a similar setup.  The drives are recognized by the system, but when reimaging we are getting a "DEBUG: Invlaid hardware unit unit type number is [255]"

Anybody have any suggestions.

[Emilo]

It will work the only issue is that you void the warranty

You will need to replace the drive 1 @ time or in pairs so you dont  destroy the OS .

You will need to bring them out the cluster to reconfigure RAID.

The safest way to do it is replace drives 6-12 all at once and reconfigure RAID.

the replace drives 1-6 one at a time and reconfigure raid after each.

If you want to replace 1-6  two at time let me know and I will post which drive host the OS so you dont have to re-image.