More favours? - Its that Proliant 3000 again!

Haven't read the whole 'ZZzzzzzz' thread but if you fancied giving more
advice....

If you remember I couldn't get the SCSI to get moving....well,

I got a new disc backplane for around 5 of your US dollars (£2.99) and HEY
things started happening.

When I now run SS I get the SCSI's to light up and they chatter nicely. I
should add that the replacement board does not have the small PCB to select
duplex/simplex although I'm assuming that as this backplane is newer that
this function is software selectable(?).

Now I tried to Install Linux CentOS 4.3 which went well but the box will not
boot into it. Sorry a few more questions.

I have both the Smart Array 221 and the SMART-2DH cards, I assume I only
need one, but which is the "best"?

Also Smartstart does not seem to stop cycling...loads...system
erase...select OS....loads.. system erase..select OS..etc etc etc.

The POST reports no SCSI drives, but I assume that as it's all done via the
PCI cards this is right(?).

I have 6 1 inch 9.1GIG drives, 3 up and 3 down which are all detected by the
Smart Array 221 card (which I'm using only because it has a "newer" date on
the board.

Any extra advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Steve
email: goodfella(at)tesco.net

"uP..AND..DOWn" youknowwhereit's@ wrote in message
...
Haven't read the whole 'ZZzzzzzz' thread but if you fancied giving more
advice....

If you remember I couldn't get the SCSI to get moving....well,

I got a new disc backplane for around 5 of your US dollars (£2.99) and HEY
things started happening.

When I now run SS I get the SCSI's to light up and they chatter nicely. I
should add that the replacement board does not have the small PCB to
select
duplex/simplex although I'm assuming that as this backplane is newer that
this function is software selectable(?).

Now I tried to Install Linux CentOS 4.3 which went well but the box will
not
boot into it. Sorry a few more questions.

I have both the Smart Array 221 and the SMART-2DH cards, I assume I only
need one, but which is the "best"?

Also Smartstart does not seem to stop cycling...loads...system
erase...select OS....loads.. system erase..select OS..etc etc etc.

The POST reports no SCSI drives, but I assume that as it's all done via
the
PCI cards this is right(?).

I have 6 1 inch 9.1GIG drives, 3 up and 3 down which are all detected by
the
Smart Array 221 card (which I'm using only because it has a "newer" date
on
the board.

Any extra advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Steve
email: goodfella(at)tesco.net


First lets talk about the array controllers. Those two cards have different
features, so you need to decide which features are more important to you and
go with that card.

They are both 32bit cards
2DH = 2 channels
221 = 1 channel
2DH = 16MB (i could show you how to up that to 64) Battery Backed Read/Write
Cache. This will enabel "acceleration"
221 = 6MB of read only cache. no battery, hence no "acceleration".
2DH = Max drive speed is WUS3 ... 40MB/s
221 = Max drive speed is Ultra2 ... 80MB/s
2DH = max devices per channel = 7
221 = max devices per channel = 15


So, think about what each controller gives you, and what drives you are
working with. If it were me, i would probably choose the 2DH unless you were
using an Ultra2/Ultra3 10bay drive cage for your 3000. And even if you were,
I woud say get an SA3200 or for that (remeber, your server doesnt have 64bit
slots, so a 5300 controller wont get you anything).

Now, about this drive backplane. You mention that there is no simplex/duplex
card ... is there a place for it? It might be that you picked up a
replacement backplane that was striaght-ole-simplex ... those existed for a
little while before the simplex/duplex design was shipped.

So, update the rom on the 2DH to 4.50 (if its really out of rev, you will
probably need to flash from floppy disks before you can successfully use the
Firmware Update CD from HP). Then, hook up channel 1 to the internal cage,
and contemplate your storage expanstion options on the second (external)
channel of that controller. Or, maybe tag the 221 for a nice 12 slot
expanstion chassis and load it up with cheap U2 drives.

If you have any other questions, let me know. whats above is what I could
come up with off the top of my head. If i think of anything else, i will
post back.

Ciao,

- LC