MD1200 Windows Server 2012 R2

Question

Hey, I recently started working on Dell MD1200 and  PE R710 servers to try out how scale out file server would work on dell hardware. Anyway I ran into an issue for some reason, I can't see the Generic SCSI Enclosure Device in the device manager or anywhere. I have 1 MD1200 with dual EMM attached to 2 PE R710 Servers with Perc H800 and SAS cables. All firmwares and Drivers are updated. I would imagine this should be pretty straight forward at least the hardware integration. It seems like I am missing something here. Is there any way you could advise me on this. Thank you. Singh

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello rogersingh,

What you will need to do is to go into either Open Manage Server Administrator or the PERC H800 bios & configure your raid configuration and virtual disk first before windows will see the drives. Here is a link to the Users Guide for your MD1200 if you didn’t already have it. ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_ser_stor_net/esuprt_powervault/powervault-md1200_Setup%20Guide_en-us.pdf

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

rogersingh · Answer

Technical Document: en.community.dell.com/.../Deploying-Storage-Spaces-on-PowerVault-MD12XX_2D00_v1.docx

rogersingh · Answer

Hi Sam, H800 is the cards which I am using to connect MD1200 to the 2 PE R710 Servers. Is that not compatible? I thought H800 is a SAS HBA. Singh

rogersingh · Answer

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the quick reply. I understand that i may need to create Virtual disks using either options you suggested. However I am trying to deploy Windows Storage Spaces.

I am following this Dell technical document :

en.community.dell.com/.../5281.deploying-windows-server-2012-r2-storage-spaces-on-dell-powervault.aspx

Please look at page 19 of the document and you will see an image of Device Manager, that is what I am missing. I am wondering if I need to do something with Open Manage besides creating a Virtual disk for the servers to be able to see it.

According to the document and the storage spaces everything will be managed by Windows itself including creating and managing Virtual disks etc.

Please let me know if this explains what i am trying to achieve.

Singh

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello Singh,

Ok from the document they are showing that the MD1200 being connected using a 6GB SAS controller & not using a PERC card. When using a PERC card you have to create a raid group & virtual disk so that they can be seen by the OS. What you would need to do to get the MD to be seen as just a JBOD is that you will need to get a 6GB SAS card that is not a SAS Raid 6GB card.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello Singh,

The H800 is compatible with the MD1200. When using the H800 as the controller your MD acts as a DAS unit & not a JBOD. When using storage spaces you need to use a NON-PERC card. Here is the note that is list at the bottom of pg7 about PERC cards: Note: The following documents refer to the PowerEdge RAID (PERC) H8XX Host-RAID adapter as the JBOD connectivity option. But for Storage Spaces deployment Dell PERC Host-RAID adapter must not be used; instead the Dell SAS 6Gb/s HBA must be used.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

rogersingh · Answer

Hey Sam

Thank you for looking into this for me. It makes lot of sense.

Would this card work? Could you please send me a link of all the compatible card options?

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Please let me know at your earliest.

Thank you

Singh

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello Singh, The card that you listed is the correct card that you will need to get to do storage spaces. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

wlazara · Answer

Hello, we have a MD1200 and two pe730xd servers with two SAS 6 HBA cards each.

We currently have one port on each hba connected to our MD3200 array. It works fine.

We connected the other port on each HBA to the MD1200 (two to the in ports, and two to the out ports, as shown in the dell storage spaces document).

Neither server can see the generic scsi enclosure device in device manager.

What do we need to do to make it visible?

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello wlazara,

Since your MD1200 has been configured & running & you want to connect it to your MD3200 then you need to follow the steps on page 22 of the MD3200 Deployment guide & it will walk you through what is needed to be done. ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/Common/powervault-md3200_Deployment%20Guide_en-us.pdf

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

wlazara · Answer

Hi Sam, we are not wanting to connect the md1200 to the md3200.

We have them connected separately, with each MD being connected to via separate ports on the sas HBAs.

What we are trying to configure is Windows Storage Spaces per the Dell doc: www.dell.com/.../documents~deploying_storage_spaces_on_powervault_md12xx-v1.pdf

We were able to switch the MD1200 to unified mode and it now properly shows as Generic SCSI enclosure (two actually since there are two EMMs and are connected redundantly).

We went ahead and updated the firmware to 1.05 per the doc and that completed successfully. However the enclosure when we run get-storageenclosure is showing unhealthy and error/error for the two emms. However they correctly report the fan health, power supply health, etc and show the firmware as 1.05

What can we do to determine what it is that's making the md1200 unhappy? We do have the serial cable but not sure how to use it to find out more information.

Thanks,

Wes

PowerVault

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