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New to SANs need help/advice
Hello Everyone
I am new to using SANs. We are a small company and our IT budget is almost nonexisant. I purchased a PS500XV from an Ebay seller with the intent of integrating it into one of our VMware ESXi 5.1 servers. I received in it a box with power cables, an RS-232 cable and rails.......NO software NO manual, NOTHING not to mention when I emailed the seller (who looks like the sell a TON of Dell SANs) was pretty short and said they didn't provide ANY customer service...all I asked to was a little direction.......
So I'm here now looking for advice. There appears to be precious little on the Dell support page for the product. It appears that when these units are shipped they include management / configuration software and I assume some sort of manual.....I have NOTHING.
PLEASE can someone help me and at least point me in the right direction. I have about worn out a keyboard searching the Internet looking for info...........to no avail.
Thanks in advance or someone's anyone's help!!!!
Phil
Anonymous
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July 18th, 2013 11:00
Hello,
You don't require any special software to manage the array, other than a broswer.
Unfortunately, you don't have a support contract, or warranty, so you can't get a support account. Which allows you access to the documents, firmware and related software. The license to use the firmware is bundled with the warranty or support contract, not in the HW itself.
All array models work the same as far as setup and operation. Different controllers, drives, number of NICs, cache will be different but the actual software won't be.
It may still be possible to get the array recertified so that you can put it under contract. However, the 5000 series goes end of life August 2014. No support will be possible after that. Some vendors are selling these arrays with aftermarket drives which would prevent you from getting a support contract.
Basic setup. Easiest option is connect to the serial port, 9600,n,8,1 NO Flowcontrol. (Not HW nor SW, AKA Xon/Xoff
Hit enter, you should get a login: prompt. Enter grpadmin with password grpadmin.
It should prompt you to configure the array. You will have to select which interface. (ETH0 is default), then an IP address info for that port. Then you enter in a Member name, that's unique to each member in a group. Then you enter a GroupName. I.e. If the group was going to be EQL-SAN, The member name could be EQL-SAN-Member1. Then you provide a Group IP (Which is the Management and discovery address). You then get prompted to create the group.
You will then get prompted for a MemberShip password and an Administrator password.
Once created you'll be at a GrpName> prompt.
You can now use the Web GUI, make sure you have Java installed, and point the browser to the Group IP address.
There manuals are online also. I.e. psonlinehelp.equallogic.com/.../configuring_an_array_and_creating_a_group.htm
There are also many other helpful links you can find via a search engine.
www.confignotes.com/.../dell-equallogic-cli-configuration
Once you get logged in you will be able to configure the RAIDset. Strongly suggest not using RAID5. It's most vulnerable. RAID6 would be best bet. Then don't forget to select the Member Name->Network tab and configure the other network ports.
Finally make sure you cable both control modules.
Regards,
pkgf
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July 18th, 2013 06:00
Hi, i am new to Equallogic as well but found the following sites to be helpful.
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/3615.rapid-equallogic-configuration-portal-by-sis.aspx
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/2639.equallogic-configuration-guide.aspx
since your device seems to be a little older you may have to go to the equallogic Support site to find Infos specific to your model.
https://support.equallogic.com/secure/login.aspx
you have to create/request an account (only for customers). maybe at this Point you Need phone Support since your device is second hand.
as i stated above, i am new to eql as well so if my Infos are wrong or something please feel free to correct me.
Phil Holman
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July 18th, 2013 20:00
Thanks Don...really helped!!!
Anonymous
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July 18th, 2013 21:00
You are very welcome. Good luck. I'm curious, what version of firmware did they provide you?
If you select the member in the WebGUI, and select Controllers, it will be listed there.
Phil Holman
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July 18th, 2013 23:00
The FW card was marked 3.3.1 I think, however the GUI showed 6.x, I think 6.2. They must have done a FW upgrade before they sent it.
The chassis shows PS3900, but looks like they have gen4 cards installed.
Hopefully I'll get it configured and interfaced to my VMware server tomorow...
Many thanks again. your info was a lifesaver! :)
Anonymous
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July 19th, 2013 08:00
You are very welcome. It's probably 6.0.2. There's no 6.2. Definitely do RAID6.
BTW, 3900's are EOL, so there's no way to get it under a support contract.
I'll give you my standard run down on ESX + EQL.
Some of the details/howto are covered in this forum posting.
en.community.dell.com/.../20008239.aspx
1.) Disable Delayed ACK
2.) Disable Large Receive Offload (LRO)
3.) Configure iSCSI with MPIO using this PDF: www.dellstorage.com/.../DownloadAsset.aspx
4.) Once configured set the pathing to Round Robin and change the IOs per path from default of 1000 to 3.
5.) ESX, like all server OS's, work better with more, smaller volumes than one or two mega volumes.
vpivot.com/.../storage-consolidation-or-how-many-vmdks-per-volume
6.) Don't use all the space on the array. Leave 5% unallocated or at least 200GB. Performance could suffer if you use 100% of the available space. VMFS datastores also need unallocated space by the way.
7.) If you have VMs with multiple VMDKs or Raw Device Mapped LUNs (RDMs) create additional Virtual SCSI controllers in those VMs.
files.docke.org/.../Adding-Additional-SCSI-Controllers-ESX-v1.0.pdf
8.) Update to the latest build of ESX, there are fixes of course, but updated drivers often resolve performance problems.
9.) Make sure your physical switches support flowcontrol and that it's enabled. Not all switches support Jumbo Frames, but if yours does it can improve performance. The iSCSI swtiches should be dedicated to SAN use, not shared with LAN traffic, and definitely not on the same IP subnet. The switches should be stacked if possible or using multiple interswitch links. Both servers and array ports should be split across the switches.
10.) Set the Login_timeout to 60 seconds, the default of 5 is way too short. It's in the configuraiton TR.
Those are some of the biggies.
Regards,