Hi,
I just decomissionned 2 DS4243.
Since I'd rather use them now than let them take the dust, I wonder if it is possible to hook them to a standard SAS adapter (eg: LSI SAS 9207-8e) placed in a server to act as a JBOD enclosure.
Physical cabling is ok and will cause no trouble, but will the disks be seen by the card. What about multipath ?
Did anybody already do/try it ?
Thanks
Laurent
Hi Laurent
Physical cabling will not be an issue, and mosr modern OS's will be able to handle multipathing without any real issues.
What may present more of an issue is the fact that NetApp formats its disks with 520 bytes per sector, whilst most OS's expect 512 bytes per sector.
I have heard of people being able to reformat disks using Linux with the desired bytes per sector, but have not done it myself. (The tine I did it was a long time ago and I could use a debug kernel to do the trick, but that was back in days of the FC-9 and ZCS vs. BCS)
Maybe someone has more recent experience of doing the trick using something publicly available.
cheers, Kenneth
----------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 20:25:27 +0200 From: lcaron@unix-scripts.info To: Toasters@teaparty.net Subject: Hooking a DS4243 to a "standard" SAS adapter
Hi,
I just decomissionned 2 DS4243.
Since I'd rather use them now than let them take the dust, I wonder if it is possible to hook them to a standard SAS adapter (eg: LSI SAS 9207-8e) placed in a server to act as a JBOD enclosure.
Physical cabling is ok and will cause no trouble, but will the disks be seen by the card. What about multipath ?
Did anybody already do/try it ?
Thanks
Laurent _______________________________________________ Toasters mailing list Toasters@teaparty.net http://www.teaparty.net/mailman/listinfo/toasters
Hi Kenneth,
Thanks for your reply.
I was expecting to put "generic" disks in the DS4243 since it'll be much cheaper than buying "original" netapp disks. The concern will then be to find trays to hold those HDDs in the DS4243. Do you know where I can find it ?
Thanks
Laurent
On 30/06/2013 23:04, Kenneth Heal wrote:
Hi Laurent
Physical cabling will not be an issue, and mosr modern OS's will be able to handle multipathing without any real issues.
What may present more of an issue is the fact that NetApp formats its disks with 520 bytes per sector, whilst most OS's expect 512 bytes per sector.
I have heard of people being able to reformat disks using Linux with the desired bytes per sector, but have not done it myself. (The tine I did it was a long time ago and I could use a debug kernel to do the trick, but that was back in days of the FC-9 and ZCS vs. BCS)
Maybe someone has more recent experience of doing the trick using something publicly available.
cheers, Kenneth
Hi
Most Netapp shelves are OEMmed from Xyratex. Indeed the DS4243 looks a lot like this guy: http://www.xyratex.com/products/onestor-ap-2424.%C2%A0 I don't know if/where you can get empty carriers; hopefully someone else can jump in on that question.
Generic disks will be 512 bps so you won't have that hurdle.
cheers, Kenneth
----------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 23:09:54 +0200 From: lcaron@unix-scripts.info To: kheal@hotmail.com; toasters@teaparty.net Subject: Re: Hooking a DS4243 to a "standard" SAS adapter
Hi Kenneth,
Thanks for your reply.
I was expecting to put "generic" disks in the DS4243 since it'll be much cheaper than buying "original" netapp disks. The concern will then be to find trays to hold those HDDs in the DS4243. Do you know where I can find it ?
Thanks
Laurent
On 30/06/2013 23:04, Kenneth Heal wrote:
Hi Laurent
Physical cabling will not be an issue, and mosr modern OS's will be able to handle multipathing without any real issues.
What may present more of an issue is the fact that NetApp formats its disks with 520 bytes per sector, whilst most OS's expect 512 bytes per sector.
I have heard of people being able to reformat disks using Linux with the desired bytes per sector, but have not done it myself. (The tine I did it was a long time ago and I could use a debug kernel to do the trick, but that was back in days of the FC-9 and ZCS vs. BCS)
Maybe someone has more recent experience of doing the trick using something publicly available.
cheers, Kenneth
-
Kenneth Heal -
Laurent CARON