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6091
March 25th, 2006 19:00
Clustering with W2k3, Power Edge 2450, PERC 2si and PowerVault 210s
Hello, Has any one ever clustered with the above config? I'm starting to think that it will not work. Both servers connect fine with the 210s in split mode. There is a total of 10 drives in the 210s. One server can access 6 and the second can access the remainig 4 (the last 2 drive slots are empty).
The problem starts when I remove the cards from the 210s and add the jumper to enable clustering. I go into the PERC 2.50 bios setup set clustering to "enabled" and change the initiator ID on the second server from 7 to 6. First server uses 7 and second server uses 6. When I reboot either box it tells me to make sure the other clustered box is online so that the NVRAM can be updated. Problem is Microsoft says having both clustered boxes up at the same time before configuring clustering, will corrupt the drives.
I've tried with one computer on or both on but neither seems to work. I can never seem to get the NVRAM on both servers in sync with the array. Everytime I think they are in sync I reboot one of the boxes and the Perc 2.50 bios says that the NVRAM is not in sync with the disks - go into "View Add Configuration". I go into View Add Configuration and try to sync up but after re-booting one of the boxes seems to be out of sync.
Will clustering really work on this config?
Thanks Brad
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Dev Mgr
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9.3K Posts
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March 27th, 2006 12:00
What are you booting to? If you have a raidcontainer for internal drives using the PERC2SI (S=single channel, I=integrated (on the motherboard)), you cannot use that same controller for shared storage space for a cluster.
If however you're booting to another controller (you didn't mention anything about that), it's a different story.
Also, not all PERCs are cluster certified. E.g. the PERC3DC is cluster certified, but the PERC3QC is not (both of these are PCI-X cards).
Some information about supported cluster configs can be found here.
rondebbs2
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March 28th, 2006 00:00
mcgaryt
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September 7th, 2006 14:00
Though this is a very old thread I thought I would give my two cents if you had given up. Or some one else is reading this thread...
Microsoft says not to allow both servers to boot all the way to Windows startup without cluster being fully installed on one node. Suggestion: With the second machine off completely, boot node one and enter the set up for the cluster enabled card. Set the configuration on that card, save, exit and reboot. Again enter the contoller setup routine and stop there. Now boot node two and enter the contoller setup routine and look at configuration (in the old MeagaRAID cards it was "View/Add") It should automatically read the config informaiton and then allow you to save it. I had to tinker a little while to figure out what menu choices in other cards accomplished this same task, but I have not had a problem with locking out a server from cluster if I made a mistake when I only allowed it to boot as far as the SCSI contoller BIOS setup.