[Info-vax] SmartArray 5300A question

[Carl Friedberg]

Rich,

FWIW, the ACU-XE utility is no longer supported; you use MSA$UTIL instead. I
don't know if that runs on VMS V7.3-2.

I have no experience with these shelves except with one SA5302 connected to
a single shelf (two SCSI cables, one for the left, one for the right). I
have found (using the now de-supported ACU-XE) that dividing up the gross
storage into RAID-1 or RAID-5 pieces is straight forward, although you have
to start at the low end and work your way up. I don't think you can take an
existing RAID-1 set, for instance, and expand it on the fly (but it's been a
while since I have tried).

I am not sure what pieces are stored on the controller, but if I had to
guess, I would guess "everything".  I think the shelves are dumb.

My 2 cents.

Carl Friedberg

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Rich Jordan <jordan at ccs4vms.com> wrote:

> We've got a site looking to add some hardware backup to an existing
> Alpha setup due to some recent downtime when their 10 year old system
> disk failed with no warning; they're not willing to go to Itanium or
> get cluster/shadow licenses, just hardware to backstop their aging
> system until a probable eventual transition to 'something newer' (I
> know...).
>
> DS10 600MHz, internal storage, VMS V7.3-2, somewhat down-rev on ECOs;
> we can get them up to current ECOs, but not upgrade to V8.3 or newer
> at this point.
>
> What they want is to replace internal with external storage (except
> maybe the tape drive), and purchase a second DS10 with identical
> hardware specs to sit 'on the shelf'.  If storage fails, its replaced
> (with spare disks).  If a DS10 or internal component failure occurs,
> they shut down, pull the second DS10 from storage, plug it up and go.
>
> We'd prefer to get storage redundancy with that external storage,
> which with the unavailability of shadowing means a hardware RAID
> controller like the Smartarray series.  I've used one before but it
> has been many years and I'm just starting to regather the docs.  I've
> already been told 'no' to considering fiberchannel and an MSA setup.
>
> If we get two Alphas with Smartarray controllers and a Compaq
> universal shelf, and set up the drive config we want (which will be
> two spindles presented to VMS, at the very least two 2-drive
> mirrorsets, at most that plus a couple of hot spare disks) on one
> alpha, can that shelf be plugged into the second alpha (first alpha
> down/disconnected) and just 'boot and go'?  Is the configuration
> information all stored on the attached disks?  Or does the controller
> itself retain information?
>
> Note that this is not concurrent access; only one alpha would be
> connected to the shelf at a time.
>
> The fun part in testing will be the lack of 'identical' test systems;
> we'll have the backup DS10 and a DS10L  (joy).  But I suppose if it
> works with them, it will work with the real DS10s.
>
> I'm not a fan of ACU-XE and the associated software; it caused us tons
> of grief in 2006 when we last used it, but the conditions here are
> unique and kind of tight.
>
> Thanks
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