ONTAP Hardware

Network Appliance DS14 MK2

SCOOBYHUSKY
7,774 Views

i currently acquired a Network Appliance DS14 MK2. Im current having raid problems with it but, i think it maybe a setting im doing wrong. This is any type of raid. ~250mb/s read  ~12mb/s write. I do have all chache settings on. I also have the san directly connected to the server via fiber to a hba. not sure if thats my problem or not. I am a complete noob to san's. we were using nas set ups but they were kinda slow and we were restricted by 1gb links and such. we are currently moving to fiber soon but i wanted this set up while i have it.  I can see the disk in windows just fine. They act right in a simple format. I am using windows disk management to do the raids. I did see people use putty and such to configure there san but i cant do that due to no ip for san.

  • Windows 2008 R2 Sp1
  • 2x Xeon E5420 
  • 32gb ddr2
  • 10k 168gb raid 1
  • Emulex LPE1150-E
  • Network Appliance DS14 MK2
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

ivisinfo
7,774 Views

This is totally unchartered ground. NetApp shelves (DS14 and others) are always ment to be connected to NetApp "controllers" and the controller is then connected to the SAN. The shelf is not directly connected to SAN/servers.

Of course if you go hacking the shelf, you may see FC devices (disks and shelf environmental services) and manage to use them somehow. But my guess is that this would not be open and by standards, it is NetApp internal and you will not find any documentation or guide. The disks are also pre-labeled. It would be an interesting project though.

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grahamhand
7,774 Views

Hi Garrett:

Can you provide a little more information about the NetApp storage system?  DS14MK2 is a disk shelf, I suspect that you have a FAS250 or FAS270 which would have been based on the DS14 shelf.  Also, are you using the disk manager in windows to create windows software RAID?  If so I would strongly suggest configuring an IP (all NetApp systems will have a serial port on them where you can assign an IP through the command line)  which will allow you to better configure the system.

--G

SCOOBYHUSKY
7,774 Views

I was looking into getting a fa250 seems like thats the problem im having. currently i only have the 2gb coper controll cards in my san. Guess the fibre only cards dont have ram? also do i have to use netapp filers? seems everything but the raid is working right.

ivisinfo
7,774 Views

Are you connecting the DS14 directly to the Windows server via fiber?

SCOOBYHUSKY
7,774 Views

yes san via fibre to hba windows server.

ivisinfo
7,775 Views

This is totally unchartered ground. NetApp shelves (DS14 and others) are always ment to be connected to NetApp "controllers" and the controller is then connected to the SAN. The shelf is not directly connected to SAN/servers.

Of course if you go hacking the shelf, you may see FC devices (disks and shelf environmental services) and manage to use them somehow. But my guess is that this would not be open and by standards, it is NetApp internal and you will not find any documentation or guide. The disks are also pre-labeled. It would be an interesting project though.

grahamhand
7,774 Views

Exactly what I was thinking.  It's also impossible to say exactly how the shelf would function in that sort of configuration since all of the shelf components have custom firmware.

SCOOBYHUSKY
7,774 Views

well i got it working about what it should be. have about ~120mb/s write bench marked. Used a cache program with a ram drive of 2gb. had to change invisible memory and a regedit to make it work. i can edit luns and such with the hba and raid the hardrives threw windows iscsi. also i can add as many diskselfs with redundancy. windows is a little slow recognizing hardrive fails but it does rebuild. only thing is its hard to figure out what hardrive is what. the hardrive id dont go in order but i just installed one by one so they fall in order. also other server attached to the san detect raid configs. thanks for the help guys. im currently trying to get a fa250 card to see if that can bypass the cache config im using. if you guys dont mind leave me your aim,yahoo or skype. i would like to pick your brain on other things. email: garrettstone499@gmail.com

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