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23489
August 26th, 2009 07:00
AX100 maximum disk size?
So I've got an AX100 that was recently replaced, and I'd like to use it for non critical storage. It came with 250 GB drives in it. I know it uses standard SATA drives. Does anyone know the maximum size it will recognize?
The only thing I can find is this where someone claims it worked fine with a 1 TB drive but wouldn't even recognize a 1.5 TB drive. Can anyone corroborate?
If I can't find any good info, I'll probably just buy a single 1.5 TB drive, pop it in and see if the AX100 recognizes it. Then after confirming/denying it works purchase enough drives to swap out all the old ones...
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dwdavis
13 Posts
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September 10th, 2009 08:00
Just as a follow up, I picked up some Seagate 1 TB drives and they are recognized without issue. A 1.5 TB drive was not recognized.
Can anyone point me to something or tell me if I can replace the 4 drives that host the Flare OS? I was thinking I'd replace one at a time, but wasn't sure if I'd have to re-initialize it or something (I didn't have anything to do with the deployment of this SAN, so I'm not familiar with the initialization process).
Dev Mgr
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9.3K Posts
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September 10th, 2009 08:00
I'll assume you currently have no data on the array.
I'd recommend to do the following:
- upgrade to the latest flare code (available from http://www.emc.com/dell-ax100support)
- create a raid 5 diskpool on disks 0 to 3
- create a small virtual disk (maybe 3GB (1 GB per physical disk on a 4-disk raid 5))
- don't use a hotspare and don't assign the virtual disk to any server
- remove disk 0 and replace it with a larger one
- wait for the raid 5 to finish rebuilding
The array will first rebuild the private space on the disk, and only then rebuild the (small) raid 5, so when you see that the raid 5 finished rebuilding, you know you can swap the next drive.
- swap disk 1, and wait, then disk 2 (and wait) and then disk 3 (and wait).
I'd recommend to now perform a reboot of the array to make sure it boots fine.
- delete the small virtual disk and diskpool
- use the system as you want
Dev Mgr
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August 26th, 2009 11:00
The official max is 500GB (that's the largest disk EMC (and therefor Dell|EMC) ever offered in the AX100.
However, as you've already found, others were successful using larger disks.
One suggestion though is to stick with nearline drives, not desktop drives. The links are examples from Seagate, but WDC and such have also similar distinctions between the models of their harddrives; nearline is better suited for systems where raid is involved, where multiple drives are in a small space (needs to be more resilient to heat build-up, etc), and the firmware is tested more than with desktop drives.