Switch and server incompatibility when upgrading from PC 2724 to PC 2848

Question

We purchased these PC2848 switches a while ago to replace some older PC2724 switches.  We have some newer Dell servers now (Power Edge R610 and T710s) that work just fine on these new PC2848 switches but our older servers (Power Edge 1850, & 1855 [blades]) just do not seem to work when plugged into the new 2848 switches.  I've tried matching all settings between them and disabling STP, Jumbo Frames, Flow Control, etc just to get it to match the 2724 switches but it will just not work. I messed around a bit more with our 1850 and updated to Intel's latest drivers (has a Pro 1000 MT dual NIC) and any other drive I could find from Dell and it will at least get some network such as Internet and some network file browsing, but when I try to transfer files from our Windows shares it starts but then usually fails with the 'remote file is no longer available' message.  I can't seem to find the issue. Is there some inherent incompatibility with these older servers and the newer 2848 switches?  I'd like to migrate over since we purchased the 48 ports so we would easily be able to fit all connections from these older switches, but now I have to just keep an old switch laying on top of the racks until I can find a way to get away from it.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks, in advance.

sdfjksfdjnksfds · Accepted Answer

Well, I'll go ahead and update this in case someone else comes along. I was able to work around this issue in a fairly ridiculous way. Here is the complete outline of my situation:

Just purchased ArcServeD2D and a QNAP NAS to move from our old tape based backup to new disk based. The blade servers (PowerEdge 1855) seem to have issues communicating via SMB/CIFS with newer servers and the QNAP NAS. The blade servers don't have a problem communication via Windows Networking (SMB/CIFS) between themselves. I took one blade server and converted it to Linux (Centos 6.2) to test to see if it was on OS issue; it wasn't. Oddly enough NFS has no problems going between this blade and the NAS. SO, I enabled NFS on the QNAP NAS server and mounted that share on the Linux blade. Then I shared that mounted directory via Samba and setup the other blades to backup via SMB/CIFS to the Linux Samba server. Therefore, I am actually backing up to the Linux blade via SMB/CIFS to an NFS mounted directory that is then on the QNAP NAS ... :emotion-18:

I really hope new Dell servers/equipment doesn't have this kind of trouble because we are going to be upgrading soon.

DELL-Willy M · Answer

First, I would recommend updating the firmware on the 2848 to the latest firmware.

28xx firmware:

www.dell.com/.../DriverFileFormats

If you have updated the older servers with the current network drivers and are still having issues with new firmware on the 2848. It may require a call into the PowerConnect Group for proper analysis of the switch to rule out any hardware issues.

Do you have any LAGs set up between the servers and the switch or teaming? If not there are not too many other configuration options that would affect the connectivity on the file transfer as far as the switch is concerned.

Hope this helps,

Keep us updated if you can.

sdfjksfdjnksfds · Answer

I intend to try and upgrade the FW on these switches tonight. I'm on v1.0.0.38 on both at the moment, though I didn't see anything in the release notes that might cause this problem. I'm not touching the FW on the 2724s though until I see these working.

I've got a fairly new LAG group setup between the two 2848 switches now (ports 1-5) but I didn't when I was initially working on this problem. After I upgrade the FW I'll run a few more tests and if I still have issues I'll remove that LAG temporarily for testing purposes.

Thanks on the fast reply, I'll let you know my results.

sdfjksfdjnksfds · Answer

Well, the firmware may have been some of the issue. I upgraded one switch (less systems on that one) and then was able to connect the blade servers (PE1855) to it. I am, however, still having network issues with the PowerEdge 1855's. I have the 1850 in a LAG like I had it on the PC2724 and it will transfer files (windows networking) fine to and from other servers, but when I try to transfer files with these PowerEdge 1855 blades on this upgraded switch I see fast one way but slow and eventually an error the other way. It's pretty random also.  I can, however, easily transfer between this 1850 and our other newer R610 servers.  It looks like there is still something in the PC 2848 that is holding the 1855's blades back. Is there anything else I can try? Thanks.

DELL-Willy M · Answer

On the 28xx RSTP is enabled by default and the 27xx series switches DO NOT support Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).

You might try disabling Spanning Tree on the 28xx and see how that responds.

The STP Global Settings page contains parameters for enabling and configuring STP operation on the

device. To open the STP Global Settings page, click Switch Spanning Tree  Global Settings in the

tree view.

Spanning Tree State — Enables or disables Spanning Tree on the device. The possible field values are:

– Enable — Enables Spanning Tree

– Disable — Disables Spanning Tree

sdfjksfdjnksfds · Answer

I've tried disabling the STP per port and that didn't help.  Would it make a difference to change the global STP state instead?

sdfjksfdjnksfds · Answer

Just to check, I went ahead and disabled the global STP on the second switch and tested it but it didn't help. I'm now going to just try a different OS on one of the blade servers and see if it is an OS problem not a hardware issue.

sdfjksfdjnksfds · Answer

Not an OS issue. I removed Windows 2003 and installed Centos 6.2 and it still gets the same type of errors when trying to transfer files via the SMB protocol. Very odd since iSCSI works fine and from what I've used with HTTP and FTP works as well at full speed, up and down.  Has to be some hardware issue with the PE1855 blades. Too bad their out of warranty and EOL already. :(

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