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 Post subject: Inherited StorServ 7400; Three Weeks In - Soooo Confused :)
PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 8:00 pm 

Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2018 7:35 pm
Posts: 2
Evening folks,
I'm stuck and I'm hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction. I'm not expecting a hand-hold here; but just generally advising which path - or paths I should be going down would be much appreciated.

So - work was going to recycle some kit in the server room. I've got a couple of G7s from them in the past that now run esx and Postgres; so I figure 'What the hell? It'll look nice in my rack'. Thus, I dutifully drag home the following; nearly giving myself a hernia in the process.

3PAR StorServ 7400 enclosure; in the back of which appears to be two IO modules
24x 300GB hard disks (Seagate) that appear to have been flashed with the '3P01' firmware according to the sticker (HP Model SLTN0900S5xnN010; Seagate ST900MM0006)
Intel RAID controller RS2PI008 - which I've now flashed to the most recent BIOS
...and two SATA cables.

Everything seems to be working fine. If I put two 'normal' hard disks from the stash I keep on hand for the G7s into slots 0 and 1 the Intel RAID controller BIOS will quite happily configure them and present the volume to whichever OS I please. Right now that OS is Windows (running on an HP Z400 workstation (also dumpster-dove!); but I'd eventually like to get the card in to the back of the G7 that runs Fedora and use the space to augment the Postgres database.

However, it's quite another story if I put two of the 300GB HP/Seagate/3P01fw in.

Now the RAID Web Console says 'PD is not supported' for both devices. Both drives are 'Unconfigured Good', but at the same time 'Unsupported'. So far as I can tell they're formatted to 512b per sector (logical and physical).

They guy at work who helped get me this kit maintains that the drives have always been in this enclosure - although I've now swapped the drives around so many times there is no way they're in the original order.

I've been fighting with this thing now for about three weeks; and I've got it down to 'something about the drives' but can't seem to make any headway.

What can I reasonably expect to get from this thing? Must I install the 3Par stuff to overcome what seems to be this odd 'drive' issue? Is it possible to reset everything and just use it under the direction of the RAID card?

Help - I don't know what is and isn't viable. All really want to do is present a big pile of storage, I don't need to do anything clever with it in the same way you would in an enterprise setting.

Thanks - I appreciate it!


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 Post subject: Re: Inherited StorServ 7400; Three Weeks In - Soooo Confused
PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 9:58 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 10:35 pm
Posts: 1328
Location: Dallas, Texas
Just a wild guess, shot in the dark here, but have you tried any of the downloadable Seagate tools to reflash/low level format the repurposed PD's?

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Richard Siemers
The views and opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.


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 Post subject: Re: Inherited StorServ 7400; Three Weeks In - Soooo Confused
PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 10:51 pm 

Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2018 7:35 pm
Posts: 2
Richard Siemers wrote:
Just a wild guess, shot in the dark here, but have you tried any of the downloadable Seagate tools to reflash/low level format the repurposed PD's?


Ahhh, yes - kind of.

I went searching Seagates site using the specific model number(s) of the drives I have; and although I found the page for the drive there were no firmware updates/downgrades/redos available.

That said, I didn't widen my search any further; so I'm going to go back and have a look for perhaps something more generic.

However, even if I find something - I'm not entirely sure how I would be able to go about applying it.

The RAID card can see the drives; but can't do anything with them. The megacli/storcli tools look like like they might be able to. :/


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 Post subject: Re: Inherited StorServ 7400; Three Weeks In - Soooo Confused
PostPosted: Mon Dec 31, 2018 2:56 am 
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Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 10:35 pm
Posts: 1328
Location: Dallas, Texas
Look into how to make the LSI card treat the PDs as a JBOD and not raid disks, aka passthrough mode. This may allow you to use the PDs directly with Redhat, thus taking the Raid Controller out of the equation... if the drives work fine directly, then that a clue-hint that the LSI Raid logic is either protecting or otherwise refusing to mess with these disks... perhaps you can find a command to clear any foreign disk flags.

Again, just shooting from the hip, I've always wanted a working 3PAR for my home lab, but you beat me to it!

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Richard Siemers
The views and opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.


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 Post subject: Re: Inherited StorServ 7400; Three Weeks In - Soooo Confused
PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 2:32 pm 

Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:32 pm
Posts: 136
So just to clarify, you are trying to use "3PAR" disks in the G7 server server on a the LSI controller ?

If so .. doubtful it will work .. most storage vendors love to fiddle the drive firmware so they only work on their kit (if you buy disks in the thousands Seagate and friends will do whatever customisation you want), can't see the 3PAR being any different (SSDs especially have been really fiddled with), also works the other way to stop you buying 3rd party disks and putting them in the 3PAR.


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