gmirror problem with HP Proliant ML110 G5

[Rainer Duffner]

Am 18.04.2008 um 20:14 schrieb Josep Pujadas i Jubany:

> On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:20:34 -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote
>> On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 07:12:06AM +0200, Gianni wrote:
>>
>> Josep, the disks may be the same in capacity, but they aren't  
>> completely
>> identical.  It's fairly obvious one is a Seagate and the other is
>> HP/Compaq drive.
>
> Yes, I know. It is difficult to have exactlly the same model when  
> you buy a
> machine to HP in Spain. First disk comes with the machine and the  
> second in
> a separate box. But I have many machines like this using gmirror  
> and no
> problem up to now.


IBM's OEMed LSI SAS RAID-controllers (in the blades) likes to have  
identical drives with identical firmware-revisions, before it even  
lets you create a RAID1.
That's why you (supposedly) pay a premium for IBM and HP: they are  
supposed to stock enough spare parts so that they can still supply  
you with them in a couple of years down the road.


>
>> This is very likely **not** the cause of the DMA errors you're
>> seeing, but I did want to take a moment to state that mix-matching
>> drives with different semantics in a mirror is somewhat risky.
>
> No other solution. If one disk fails and I have to change it I'm  
> quite sure
> I will not find the same model. Same geometry yes, but exactly the  
> same
> model not.


HP should be able to deliver!
If not, I'd not bother with their stuff and just order Tyan-barebones  
right away.

IMO, the low-end HP stuff is not worth the trouble - anything below  
DL360 is so cheap that I'd have problems calling it a "server" actually.

I think I'd rather buy a DL380 from ebay - because those are rock- 
solid and use decent hardware. The rest are just "Me too"-products so  
that the roadmap starts at a lower entry price (somebody obviously  
got annoyed of all the "HP"="high-price" babble)



cheers,
Rainer
-- 
Rainer Duffner
CISSP, LPI, MCSE
rainer at ultra-secure.de