[CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Hugh E Cruickshank
Hi All:

Has anyone tried using an LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller in
an HP DL380G5 (of any HP G5 DL for that matter) running CentOS 5? It
looks like it should work but it would be nice to know that someone
has already done it before I start going to all the effort and expense
of building the box. I have a spare DL380 and a couple of IBM EXP400
disk arrays that I would like to configure as a backup database server.

Any and all comments will be appreciated.

Regards, Hugh

-- 
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com 
___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Joseph L. Casale
Has anyone tried using an LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller in
an HP DL380G5 (of any HP G5 DL for that matter) running CentOS 5? It
looks like it should work but it would be nice to know that someone
has already done it before I start going to all the effort and expense
of building the box. I have a spare DL380 and a couple of IBM EXP400
disk arrays that I would like to configure as a backup database server.

While I haven't, I also agree it should, but you can email supp...@lsi.com
and ask, they have top notch support, I just asked a similar question
a month ago for a PCIe card in an HP server...

jlc
___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Hugh E Cruickshank
From: Joseph L. Casale Sent: February 3, 2011 11:59
 Has anyone tried using an LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller in
 an HP DL380G5 (of any HP G5 DL for that matter) running CentOS 5? It
 looks like it should work but it would be nice to know that someone
 has already done it before I start going to all the effort and expense
 of building the box. I have a spare DL380 and a couple of IBM EXP400
 disk arrays that I would like to configure as a backup database server.

 While I haven't, I also agree it should, but you can email supp...@lsi.com
 and ask, they have top notch support, I just asked a similar question
 a month ago for a PCIe card in an HP server...

Thanks. That is an excellent suggestion and one I should have thought
of as well (but I did not). I will give it a try right now.

Regards, Hugh

--
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com

___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Hugh E Cruickshank
From: Hugh E Cruickshank Sent: February 3, 2011 12:06
 From: Joseph L. Casale Sent: February 3, 2011 11:59
 
  While I haven't, I also agree it should, but you can email
  supp...@lsi.com and ask, they have top notch support, I just asked
  a similar question a month ago for a PCIe card in an HP server...
 
 Thanks. That is an excellent suggestion and one I should have thought
 of as well (but I did not). I will give it a try right now.

Well their response was:

 Please accept my apologies, but the end-of-life 320-2E does not
 have a compatibility matrix.

Looks like I will just have to go ahead and try it out for myself.

Thanks again for your suggestion.

Regards, Hugh

-- 
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com 
___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread compdoc
I have an Altos G510 server, (two xeon sockets) and it has a Megaraid scsi
320-0X PCI-X controller that 5.5 recognizes.

Maybe there's a chance it will do so for yours...

Good luck


___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Hugh E Cruickshank
From: compdoc Sent: February 3, 2011 15:23
 
 I have an Altos G510 server, (two xeon sockets) and it has a Megaraid
 scsi 320-0X PCI-X controller that 5.5 recognizes.
 
 Maybe there's a chance it will do so for yours...

I am currently using 320-2X units in our Acer G700 and G701 servers
with CentOS 4.8 and 5.5 without problems. My concern was with using
the 320-2E units in an HP DL380G5 box with CentOS 5. This is something
that I have no experience with and I was asking if anyone had had it
working in the HP box.

Thanks for your comment.

Regards, Hugh

-- 
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com 
___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread John R Pierce
On 02/03/11 3:32 PM, Hugh E Cruickshank wrote:
 From: compdoc Sent: February 3, 2011 15:23
 I have an Altos G510 server, (two xeon sockets) and it has a Megaraid
 scsi 320-0X PCI-X controller that 5.5 recognizes.

 Maybe there's a chance it will do so for yours...
 I am currently using 320-2X units in our Acer G700 and G701 servers
 with CentOS 4.8 and 5.5 without problems. My concern was with using
 the 320-2E units in an HP DL380G5 box with CentOS 5. This is something
 that I have no experience with and I was asking if anyone had had it
 working in the HP box.

does that box have PCI-X slots rather than PCI-Express ?   if it does, 
and the controller is supported by the OS, there's really no reason for 
it not to work.

if you want to use it in conjunction with built in drive bays, internal 
cabling may be an issue.   if its for use with external arrays, that 
should be fine.


___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Hugh E Cruickshank
From: John R Pierce Sent: February 3, 2011 16:41
 On 02/03/11 3:32 PM, Hugh E Cruickshank wrote:
  From: compdoc Sent: February 3, 2011 15:23
  I have an Altos G510 server, (two xeon sockets) and it has a Megaraid
  scsi 320-0X PCI-X controller that 5.5 recognizes.
 
  Maybe there's a chance it will do so for yours...
  I am currently using 320-2X units in our Acer G700 and G701 servers
  with CentOS 4.8 and 5.5 without problems. My concern was with using
  the 320-2E units in an HP DL380G5 box with CentOS 5. This is something
  that I have no experience with and I was asking if anyone had had it
  working in the HP box.
 
 does that box have PCI-X slots rather than PCI-Express ?   if it does, 
 and the controller is supported by the OS, there's really no reason
 for it not to work.
 
 if you want to use it in conjunction with built in drive bays,
 internal cabling may be an issue.   if its for use with external
 arrays, that should be fine.

The DL380G5 comes with a PCI riser cage that has 3 PCIe slots. There
is an optional PCI-X/PCI-E Riser which has 2 PCIx slots and one PCIe.
This would be an option for us and it should work with the 320-2 cards
that we already have. The only problem with this would be that I have
three external arrays with two UW320 ports each therefore I would need
three controller cards.

I have done a search on the PCI-X/PCI-E Riser and, although it has been
discontinued, there does seem to be a reasonable supply available.

I will reconsider the need for all three arrays and see if I can go
with the PCI-X cards.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Regards, Hugh

-- 
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com 
___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread John R Pierce
On 02/03/11 5:06 PM, Hugh E Cruickshank wrote:

 I will reconsider the need for all three arrays and see if I can go
 with the PCI-X cards.

If this is SAS stuff, you can generally daisy chain a few trays of 
drives, at the expensive of total available IO bandwidth (eg, fewer SAS 
channels are being shared by more drives)


___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Hugh E Cruickshank
From: John R Pierce Sent: February 3, 2011 17:14
 On 02/03/11 5:06 PM, Hugh E Cruickshank wrote:
 
  I will reconsider the need for all three arrays and see if I can go
  with the PCI-X cards.
 
 If this is SAS stuff, you can generally daisy chain a few trays of 
 drives, at the expensive of total available IO bandwidth (eg, fewer
 SAS channels are being shared by more drives)

Unfortunately it is SCSI 3 (Ultra320) which, in itself, is chainable
however I believe that there may be a limitation based on the SCSI ID
of the individual drives. I will have to do some experimentation to
see if this is possible.

Thanks for your suggestion. It is not one I had thought of as I am
so used to limiting one array to one controller.

Regards, Hugh

-- 
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com 
___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread John R Pierce
On 02/03/11 5:23 PM, Hugh E Cruickshank wrote:
 From: John R Pierce Sent: February 3, 2011 17:14
 On 02/03/11 5:06 PM, Hugh E Cruickshank wrote:
 I will reconsider the need for all three arrays and see if I can go
 with the PCI-X cards.
 If this is SAS stuff, you can generally daisy chain a few trays of
 drives, at the expensive of total available IO bandwidth (eg, fewer
 SAS channels are being shared by more drives)
 Unfortunately it is SCSI 3 (Ultra320) which, in itself, is chainable
 however I believe that there may be a limitation based on the SCSI ID
 of the individual drives. I will have to do some experimentation to
 see if this is possible.

 Thanks for your suggestion. It is not one I had thought of as I am
 so used to limiting one array to one controller.

parallel scsi supports 15 max devices plus the controller makes 16.   
and often there is a SES backplane controller using a target ID leaving 
just 14 drives per channel/controller.




___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


Re: [CentOS] LSI MegaRAID 320-2E PCIe RAID Controller

2011-02-03 Thread Hugh E Cruickshank
From: John R Pierce Sent: February 3, 2011 17:30

 parallel scsi supports 15 max devices plus the controller makes 16.
 and often there is a SES backplane controller using a target ID
 leaving just 14 drives per channel/controller.

With 12 drive per array the IDs get chewed up fast. But I believe I
am in luck as I just recalled that one of the MegaRAID cards is a 320-4
not a 320-2 and it has four ports. That means I can get away with one
320-2 and one 320-4 and still have 6 ports while only requiring two
PCI-X slots. It looks like this is going together and for a lot less
then I was looking at the first place since I only need to purchase one
riser ($200.00) instead of three 320-2E cards (price varies from $275
to $700 each depending on the source).

Thanks to all for your responses. They were all appreciated.

Regards, Hugh

--
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com

___
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos