e2700 to e2600 connection

[krondizzle]

I have a netapp e2700 and an e2600.  I would like to conect them together.  The e2700 has a sas sff-8644 and the e2600 which has a sas sff-8088.  Can i just buy an adapter to connect them?

[SpindleNinja]

You can't,  they're controllers with disks,  not shelves.  And I don't think there are conversion kits out there for the e. 

  Can I ask why you're trying to do this?   

[krondizzle]

We currently have a e2700 wich is acting as our storage for backup.  We received an e2600 from a sister company.  Bare with me as I am not very familiar with netapp equipment.  I think the e2600 has a 3612 chassis.  We would like to connect the e2600 via sas to the e2700 to expand the storage.  Would sas not work for this?

[SpindleNinja]

Quick blurb on NetApp systems;  there's 3 major types of physical systems.  

AFF/FAS - Runs ONTAP OS

eSeries  - Runs SANtricity 

Solidfire / HCI - Runs Element OS.   

As far as your 2700 and 2600  they are two different generations of the eseries controllers/arrays.       You can connect and e-Eeries to a FAS platform via FlexArray.   But you have eseries to eseries.     I don't think there is a way to turn the 2600 in to just a shelf (maybe buy ESMs) 

How is your current eseries setup?   DataStores to VMware?    You could just run them side by side.   

[krondizzle]

The e2700 is attached to vmware via ISCSI.  I would be more than happy to try that.  Just to give you some information, I logged into the e2600 via santricity but didnt see any iscsi settings.  Now I know that there are different firmware versions for the e2700 to set it to iscsi or fiber channel.  I dont know if I am missing the settings or if it is like the e2700 and I just need to get a different firmware version.  Or maybe I am just crazy.

[SpindleNinja]

The eseries ship with a couple different configs.    

But two general configs are: 

• Direct Connect SAS via mini-SAS HD ports
• FC/iSCSI via SFP ports.   

it'll say what type of ports are on the back of the 2600. 

[krondizzle]

On the back it just has two ethernet and three sas ports.  So I am assuming it only supports sas.  Is that correct?

[SpindleNinja]

Mmm.... Are you able to post a picture?    but yeah,  probably just 2 sas to the hosts and 1 expansion port. 

[krondizzle]

[SpindleNinja · Accepted solution]

Yep.   just sas.  

If you look at HWU, there are adaptor cards out there to add FC or iSCSI to it. 

X-52710-00-R6 is the 2p 10Gb iSCSI card.     (not sure current availability though) 

check out https://hwu.netapp.com for more details. 

[krondizzle]

I will look into that.  I think I will end up trying to add it to the server with an hba.  Thank you very much for your help on this.

[Nona]

Even i have the same doubt.