Re: Storage Server

[Reg <reg_(_at_)_nwc_(_dot_)_ca>]

Marco Peereboom wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 21, 2005 at 02:05:31PM -0600, Tom Geman wrote:
>  
>
> > I was hoping someone here could answer a few questions.
> > Can I install OpenBSD on this PV 220, or is it just a bunch of disks with 
> > no processor?
> >    
>
> This question is very ambiguous.  You can't install OpenBSD on the PV220S
> itself however you can install OpenBSD on a machine that uses the PV220S as its
> disk storage device.  To add more confusion the box does have a SCSI processor
> device thats supported by ses(4).
>
>  
>
> > If so, does that mean I need another computer to install OpenBSD on, that 
> > will use the PV 220 as it's storage?
> >    
>
> Yes.
>
>  
>
> > Can this be any computer (what requirements, any recommended brands), or does
> > it have to be this Dell PowerVault 745N (which seems to come pre-install with
> > some Windows Storage Server OS)?
> >    
>
> It can be virtually any computer.  Beck@ uses IBM amd64 boxes for this with a
> Dell PERC4 HBA.  Some examples of well supported HBAs are PERC3/4, ahc/ahd and
> mpt.
>
> The 745N is a NAS box; don't get that.
>
>
>  
If the 745N is anything like the 730N (i'm too lazy to look it up), it's 
just a PowerEdge server with some disks and a special version of windows 
advanced server which can do clustering, but not domain controller stuff. 
Marco is right - Don't get it.

As for the 220 - we have three PV220s scsi arrays.   In my experience 
you want to make sure your firmware on that baby is right up to snuff.  
There were some really bad versions out there that caused our windows 
servers to be unable to read from the volumes.  Rebooting "fixed" it 
(much as it "fixes" many things  in windows) but firmware upgrade 
resolved it long term.  In our case the volumes held a few million 
little 3-5k .tif files.