FS7600 Upgrade

Hello, 

  Yes, there are instructions on loading the OS on the EQL support site.  However, it sounds like you don't have a support contract for the FS7600?  Which has I believe a separate license from the EQL group itself. 

  Regards, 

Don 

Do you have a link to the instructions?

I can see if I have access to it.

Hi,

Thanks for reply. Yes I do have a valid subscription which is expiring soon. And this happened, where I need to reinstall. However I would like to do it myself incase cant get the renewal done. 

Is there instructions? I just like the management to be within equallogic. This is a test environment.

Hello, 

I'm sorry but the FluidOS is only available to customers with a support contract. 

 That product has not been supported or developed for a few years.  I would not recommend trying to use it as a fluidOS fileserver.  As there maybe be future security issues for example that will not be resolvable. 

 There are a number of free and commercial NAS appliances that will work with EQL storage over iSCSI. 

  Regards, 

Don

Hello, 

 Once you sign in, you can try this link.  It's under FS firmware downloads, then select the version. 

https://eqlsupport.dell.com/support/download.aspx?id=6442456898

 This is for 4.0.  The last version for the FS7xxx series. 

 Regards, 

Don 

Thank you sir.

Question now is can a fs7600 be upgraded to fs7610? What needs to happen. 

Hello, 

 Upgrades were never supported by Dell.  I have no idea if you can do that or not.  Sorry. 

 Regards, 

Don 

Interesting, there were upgrades from PS6500 to Ps6510. These require just hardware and firmware upgrades. 

I am assuming they did the same for FS7600 series.

Will try it out and see how it goes.

Hello, 

 That's because the EQL firmware was updated to allow for that upgrade, and very well tested. 

  The FS software developed by another company that Dell later purchased. 

   Good luck!   Please let us know how it goes. 

 Regards, 

Don 

Is fs7600 still being developed  by third party ? What other alternative are there that I can use with the fs7600 hardware ? Looking for a HA NFS server solution.

Hello, 

  re: 3rd party.  No.  It's owned by Dell and no longer sold.  

  Also, mea culpla, and upgrade from GbE to 10GbE was sold at one point.  

  If the plan was to use this for production I would recommend against using it as a FS76xx. 

  There are a number of options.  A simple one is run those serves as hypervisors.  Then build your NFS server as a VM.  The NFS server would get its storage from EQL.  In the VMware parlance, using RDMs works very well.  Let the hypervisor handle the iSCSI and MPIO, and the VM just controls the filesystem actions.   Then use the HA of the hypervisor in case of server failure or migrate for HW maintenance.  I don't know of any HA NFS servers with its own HA that you could load on that HW.  That's what I do in my lab for NFS.  In fact, since I have multiple EQL groups I use the mirror function in my NAS to even prevent back end failure of a group.  I don't really need that level of HA but it's good to try things like this out. 

 Regards, 

Don

 Regards, 

Don

Hi,

No worries. We are all here to help each other. 

The upgrade is what I am trying to figure out. I read last night that these controllers have a factory image on a USB that is internal. During boot press F11 and select generic disk.

This goes through a factory recovery and reinstall on the hard drive. Very smart. So I think that to upgrade to 10Gbe is to change the network adapter to X520-DA2 and change the USB with an image from FS7610. This of course would require a clean installation of NAS Cluster. 

Something to test out once I have the hardware. 

I did look at a VM solution but sadly there isn't any good one in a NAS Cluster or HA solution. Unless you go DFS solution from Microsoft. BUT the license cost to have for each hypervisor is not worth it.

Does anyone have a FS7610 and can get image from the Internal USB for me to try.

Hello, 

 The OS is the same for FS7600 as for the 7610. 

  Re: HA.  Again, I feel I need to point out, that needing that level of HA where even a minute or two of downtime isn't acceptable on EOL hardware with no support, and soon the backend storage which is also EOL will go off contract doesn't seem to align with your needs.   For true HA you would need mirrored storage, since that's while redundant at many points is still potentially a failure point. 

 Also, DFS is replication based HA.  So that can potentially get out of sync 

 There are also some very good open source hypervisors.   

 What model array are you trying to connect to?   What is the EQL FW?  It really needs to be 10.0.3.  If you have not already downloaded the FW, and any intermediate FW to get to 10.0.3 I would do so before you contract runs out and downloads are disabled. 

 You also might want to see if you can get a Post Standard Support contract on that array.  That will get your parts replacements.  If you plan on this for production use at all.   I find that once a server is stood up, people find a need to store things on it!  haha 

 Regards, 

Don

Do you know what 10gbe cards are in fs7610?

Hello, 

 Sorry, no I don't know for sure.  Though, I did find this online on a 7610 for sale

• Network: 2 x 10GB X520-DA2 10GB Adapters

 Regards, 

Don