I will remind you Edward that many of the users who wish to use Filers at home are trying to improve their skills. Obviously buying a couple 200G IDE/SATA disks is a better solution, but give us fellas who like to hack at home because it's all we've got a little credit. :)
This only strikes a nerve with me because it's at the heart of the old legal issues of off-support heads.
benr.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com on behalf of Edward Valencia Sent: Sun 11/7/2004 12:24 PM To: mikka makka Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: F740 at home -- please help me! You must like to waste electricity this is a wrothless product to have at home. Get 7 200gb drives a pci raid controller and a decent pc and you have a better nfs/samba server than both those two machines combined. Also the rate that the disk failures occur on such old systems you will need alot of spares, the cost isnt worth it. Sell it on ebay or something and use the money to build the system described.
To be able to download the software for your netapps, you will need to register the heads and then see if they have the software entitlement enabled. As I said these systems are worthless for home usage. Since netapp makes thier money on supporting the harwdware, than the hardware itself. The cost to enable parts replacements on 13 F760s for us was 135k a year. Ten thousand a year for next day support and a nfs license. Tells you alot.
Edwardv-
mikka makka wrote:
Hi all,
Last year I inherited an F740 filer with two FC9 shelves (7x36 GB disks). I used it happily at home for a few months and then a disk began to fail -- one had already failed, so that put the unit out of commission although luckily I was able to get all my data off it before total lossage. I bought a couple of Seagate ST136403FC drives -- the same model number as in the drive carriers -- off ebay and tried swapping them in, but no luck; the system wouldn't recognize them. On a hunch that it might have to do with firmware I tried swapping the drive's controller boards (old drives' controllers with new drives), but that didn't work either; the system wouldn't come up, dumping core for some reason. I figured the drives themselves probably needed to be zeroed/initialized/labeled in some way that made them acceptable to the Netapp, but I couldn't figure out any way to get the Netapp up and into a mode that would let me do that. Finally, lacking documentation for the system, I gave up.
Fast-forward a little, I just inherited a second filer, an F720, also with two FC9 (7x36) shelves. As far as I know all disks good. Unfortunately it won't boot up (it finds and loads the image, gives the "Initializing PCI devices" and then suddenly reboots itself, without even dumping core). I'm not sure what the problem could be.
I tried plugging in some of the disks from the new shelves in place of the bad disks in the old one, and now the 740 starts up and gives me a "File system may be scrambled" message -- well, of course it is, since the replaced disks contain who-knows-what, but I don't see how I can proceed from there. I'm not worried about getting back the original file system as I backed it up -- I just want to clear everything out and make a new one.
The situation seems to me to be this: I've got an F740 (and a spare F720), and four shelves with a grand total of 26 good, identical, disks (and maybe even 28, if I could get the drive controller swap to work). That's 900GB of storage.
I'm sure I should be able somehow to hook the four shelves up to the 740, reinitialize the whole system and all the drives somehow, and start afresh with a working 900GB filesystem. But I don't have the docs and floppy or whatever that came with the filers and I have no idea how to proceed given that the filer won't even start up to give me a command prompt that I might be able to work with. I'm not sure if I would need to boot from a floppy (I don't have one) or what...
Is there anyone out there who could help, in any way? I'd be forever grateful... For the few months I had the 740 running, it was heaven -- amazing having a file server like this at home, even though I was using only the smallest fraction of its capabilities. Now that I have four disk shelves, I'm really motivated to get it working again, but I'm truly stuck without documentation
Thanks so much for any help you could offer, Adam Jacobs mikkamakka@hotmail.com
.
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Oh dont get me wrong, playing with these machines is great, but to use them at home for more than just learning is a different story. I was just daying you'd better have some deep pockets to play with thats all.
edwardv-
Ben Rockwood wrote:
I will remind you Edward that many of the users who wish to use Filers at home are trying to improve their skills. Obviously buying a couple 200G IDE/SATA disks is a better solution, but give us fellas who like to hack at home because it's all we've got a little credit. :)
This only strikes a nerve with me because it's at the heart of the old legal issues of off-support heads.
benr.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com on behalf of Edward Valencia Sent: Sun 11/7/2004 12:24 PM To: mikka makka Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: F740 at home -- please help me! You must like to waste electricity this is a wrothless product to have at home. Get 7 200gb drives a pci raid controller and a decent pc and you have a better nfs/samba server than both those two machines combined. Also the rate that the disk failures occur on such old systems you will need alot of spares, the cost isnt worth it. Sell it on ebay or something and use the money to build the system described.
To be able to download the software for your netapps, you will need to register the heads and then see if they have the software entitlement enabled. As I said these systems are worthless for home usage. Since netapp makes thier money on supporting the harwdware, than the hardware itself. The cost to enable parts replacements on 13 F760s for us was 135k a year. Ten thousand a year for next day support and a nfs license. Tells you alot.
Edwardv-
mikka makka wrote:
Hi all,
Last year I inherited an F740 filer with two FC9 shelves (7x36 GB disks). I used it happily at home for a few months and then a disk began to fail -- one had already failed, so that put the unit out of commission although luckily I was able to get all my data off it before total lossage. I bought a couple of Seagate ST136403FC drives -- the same model number as in the drive carriers -- off ebay and tried swapping them in, but no luck; the system wouldn't recognize them. On a hunch that it might have to do with firmware I tried swapping the drive's controller boards (old drives' controllers with new drives), but that didn't work either; the system wouldn't come up, dumping core for some reason. I figured the drives themselves probably needed to be zeroed/initialized/labeled in some way that made them acceptable to the Netapp, but I couldn't figure out any way to get the Netapp up and into a mode that would let me do that. Finally, lacking documentation for the system, I gave up.
Fast-forward a little, I just inherited a second filer, an F720, also with two FC9 (7x36) shelves. As far as I know all disks good. Unfortunately it won't boot up (it finds and loads the image, gives the "Initializing PCI devices" and then suddenly reboots itself, without even dumping core). I'm not sure what the problem could be.
I tried plugging in some of the disks from the new shelves in place of the bad disks in the old one, and now the 740 starts up and gives me a "File system may be scrambled" message -- well, of course it is, since the replaced disks contain who-knows-what, but I don't see how I can proceed from there. I'm not worried about getting back the original file system as I backed it up -- I just want to clear everything out and make a new one.
The situation seems to me to be this: I've got an F740 (and a spare F720), and four shelves with a grand total of 26 good, identical, disks (and maybe even 28, if I could get the drive controller swap to work). That's 900GB of storage.
I'm sure I should be able somehow to hook the four shelves up to the 740, reinitialize the whole system and all the drives somehow, and start afresh with a working 900GB filesystem. But I don't have the docs and floppy or whatever that came with the filers and I have no idea how to proceed given that the filer won't even start up to give me a command prompt that I might be able to work with. I'm not sure if I would need to boot from a floppy (I don't have one) or what...
Is there anyone out there who could help, in any way? I'd be forever grateful... For the few months I had the 740 running, it was heaven -- amazing having a file server like this at home, even though I was using only the smallest fraction of its capabilities. Now that I have four disk shelves, I'm really motivated to get it working again, but I'm truly stuck without documentation
Thanks so much for any help you could offer, Adam Jacobs mikkamakka@hotmail.com
.
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On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Edward Valencia wrote:
Oh dont get me wrong, playing with these machines is great, but to use them at home for more than just learning is a different story. I was just daying you'd better have some deep pockets to play with thats all.
I've got an F330 at home for my home network, and an F720 and F760 at home as part of my company's network. I've been running filers since 1995 and I wouldn't store my data on anything else - I have never lost a single file due to a NetApp hardware or software error, something I can't say for any other storage solution I've used. And like most sysadmins, backups are not my favorite thing in the world, so my home network tends to be neglected... :-/
As for replacements, old Seagate 4GB drives are practically free these days - I've got dozens pulled from an old Auspex that someone gave me, as well as a couple of full DEC BA35x shelves that came with drives - I just bought it for the SBBs and spare power supplies, and the seller didn't even charge me for the disks. (Sure, 72GB or 144GB 15k RPM FC-AL drives cost actual money, but we're talking about running an EOL'ed filer at home, not a FAS980. :-)
So, yes, although I could easily replace my filer with yet another box to maintain with "cheap" 200GB drives, I don't need the worry or the hassles. Besides, I must not have enough pr0n or mp3s saved up because my home directory (with about 10 years of data in it) is barely over 6GB. So my little F330 is perfect; it just runs and runs and serves up NFS to the pile of random Unix boxes in the house without a fuss - Enron/PGE power prices be damned!
If I've learned anything in 20+ years in this stupid computer industry, it's that there are two things you should never scrimp on: always buy quality disk storage, and a good quality monitor.
Plus, it's cool as hell to have NetApps in the house. :-)
Cheers,
-- Chris
to learn ontapp, the better and easier is (i think) download a netapp simulator and make it run on a linux box
about the license, OpenVMS license, OS and some papers are available as reasonable cost (perfect for home user) Netapp could do the same : a light fee to be able to get 537r3D18 for every F7xx Filer and access the now.netapp.com doc
Ben Rockwood wrote:
I will remind you Edward that many of the users who wish to use Filers at home are trying to improve their skills. Obviously buying a couple 200G IDE/SATA disks is a better solution, but give us fellas who like to hack at home because it's all we've got a little credit. :)
This only strikes a nerve with me because it's at the heart of the old legal issues of off-support heads.
benr.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com on behalf of Edward Valencia Sent: Sun 11/7/2004 12:24 PM To: mikka makka Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: F740 at home -- please help me! You must like to waste electricity this is a wrothless product to have at home. Get 7 200gb drives a pci raid controller and a decent pc and you have a better nfs/samba server than both those two machines combined. Also the rate that the disk failures occur on such old systems you will need alot of spares, the cost isnt worth it. Sell it on ebay or something and use the money to build the system described.
To be able to download the software for your netapps, you will need to register the heads and then see if they have the software entitlement enabled. As I said these systems are worthless for home usage. Since netapp makes thier money on supporting the harwdware, than the hardware itself. The cost to enable parts replacements on 13 F760s for us was 135k a year. Ten thousand a year for next day support and a nfs license. Tells you alot.
Edwardv-
mikka makka wrote:
Hi all,
Last year I inherited an F740 filer with two FC9 shelves (7x36 GB disks). I used it happily at home for a few months and then a disk began to fail -- one had already failed, so that put the unit out of commission although luckily I was able to get all my data off it before total lossage. I bought a couple of Seagate ST136403FC drives -- the same model number as in the drive carriers -- off ebay and tried swapping them in, but no luck; the system wouldn't recognize them. On a hunch that it might have to do with firmware I tried swapping the drive's controller boards (old drives' controllers with new drives), but that didn't work either; the system wouldn't come up, dumping core for some reason. I figured the drives themselves probably needed to be zeroed/initialized/labeled in some way that made them acceptable to the Netapp, but I couldn't figure out any way to get the Netapp up and into a mode that would let me do that. Finally, lacking documentation for the system, I gave up.
Fast-forward a little, I just inherited a second filer, an F720, also with two FC9 (7x36) shelves. As far as I know all disks good. Unfortunately it won't boot up (it finds and loads the image, gives the "Initializing PCI devices" and then suddenly reboots itself, without even dumping core). I'm not sure what the problem could be.
I tried plugging in some of the disks from the new shelves in place of the bad disks in the old one, and now the 740 starts up and gives me a "File system may be scrambled" message -- well, of course it is, since the replaced disks contain who-knows-what, but I don't see how I can proceed from there. I'm not worried about getting back the original file system as I backed it up -- I just want to clear everything out and make a new one.
The situation seems to me to be this: I've got an F740 (and a spare F720), and four shelves with a grand total of 26 good, identical, disks (and maybe even 28, if I could get the drive controller swap to work). That's 900GB of storage.
I'm sure I should be able somehow to hook the four shelves up to the 740, reinitialize the whole system and all the drives somehow, and start afresh with a working 900GB filesystem. But I don't have the docs and floppy or whatever that came with the filers and I have no idea how to proceed given that the filer won't even start up to give me a command prompt that I might be able to work with. I'm not sure if I would need to boot from a floppy (I don't have one) or what...
Is there anyone out there who could help, in any way? I'd be forever grateful... For the few months I had the 740 running, it was heaven -- amazing having a file server like this at home, even though I was using only the smallest fraction of its capabilities. Now that I have four disk shelves, I'm really motivated to get it working again, but I'm truly stuck without documentation
Thanks so much for any help you could offer, Adam Jacobs mikkamakka@hotmail.com
.
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Ben Rockwood -
Chris Lamb -
Edward Valencia -
Stephane