Can a CX4-240 system have a CX4DPAE with CX3-20 Flare drives?

If I remember correctly, the upgrade from a CX3 to a CX4 involved swapping out the DPE and the vault drives.

The CX4DPAE should be a CX4 chassis with the CX4 SP's. If that's the case it's possible a CX3 was upgraded to a CX4 and they reused the vault drives, but I though that upgrade also included the new vault drives as well.

glen

Thanks Glen!

I am going to open the other two boxes (SPE and SPS).  If the SPE is CX4 type/model then is it safe to assume that the flare is definitely CX4 (though it is marked as CX3-20)?

I am hesitating to open/unwrap boxes as if this is a wrong shipment I have to send it back to the seller and i don't want to go through the hassle of packing them.

thanks again!

If they have re-used the vault drives of CX3-20 then it would be safe to assume that DAE you have has 2 Gb legacy disk in a disk-array enclosure (DAE) on a 4 Gb bus. If that's the case then you will need to change the bus speed to 2 Gb to use the disk in a RAID group or thin pool.

How?

You can change the bus speed with the Backend Bus Speed Reset Wizard, which is available from the Service option on the Navisphere Manager Tools menu. The speed reset operation reboots the storage processors.

One more thing, if this is a converted/upgraded array it requires FLARE OE version 04.28.000.5.501 or later.

So that way when you start assembling the pieces you can verify at the beginning what's the FLARE version and that will give you at least an idea or satisfaction or dissatisfaction about which array it is!

There are two pieces of software -  "Unisphere Server Manager" and "Unisphere Client" that you can install on a Windows XP or Windows 7 PC that will allow you to access the array. There are called the Off-Array Manager and Off-Array Client. You need JAVA 1.6.30 for the array, but you can use 1.7.51 also. You use the software to install Unisphere Manager on the PC and the Client to access the local Unisphere Manager (when Client starts it will ask you for the IP address - use the IP for SPA). This should allow you to log into the array using the Manager on the PC. There are some security warnings from JAVA that may pop up, just select the No or Cancel options to continue. The first time you log into the Off-Array Manager using the IP address of the array it will ask for the User name and Password - this is the user name/Password that is set on the array.

glen

Thanks Glen! I used off-array Navispehere manager and the Navispehere Manager was disabled. Once i enabled I was able to use the on-system Navispshere manager.

I Have a new problem (probably the last issue) now. Looks like the array had two shelves and one of them was abruptly removed before sent to me. Due to this Bus 0 Enclosure 1 is reported as missing. There are two LUNs under this shelf that I am not able to remove - tried from CLI and also Engineering mode.

Due to this I am unable to upgrade Flare to 4.30 (from current 4.28).

any idea how I could remove those thin pool LUNS that are part of the disk shelf that is missing?

also, if I buy a new shelf and attach as Bus 0 Enclosure 1, will I be able to "cheat the system" and remove the LUNs?

thank you for your assistance!

The issue is that the array contains a database of the configuration. When you remove a DAE without deleting all the LUNs and raid groups configured, the array will still think that configuration still exists, but it also stores the configuration along with the disk information and it is expecting that information from the disks. Adding a new DAE with disks that do not have the information on the disks will not work.

In order to clear the database stored on the array engineering would need to run a tool on the array. That can only be run by engineering. The only other method is to re-image the Vault disks - that by default would clear everything off the array.

glen

The re-image is a procedure that is provided to EMC support and partners only. You may be able to find someone that has done this, but as EMC employee, we're not allowed to provide this information.

glen