Question

Diskless EMC AX100

Asked by: Maxwellb

Hi Experts,

I have an EMC AX100 sitting in the corner unused. I REALLY would like to start using it, but have never worked with any EMC product before. One show-stopper might be that there are no disks in it, and from what I've read the FLARE OS is supposed to be stored on disk 0 or something like that. Assuming I can get a hold of some disk trays for this thing, what are the chances of getting it actually working? Are Navisphere Express and the latest FLARE OS free downloads? How would I get FLARE OS onto one of the disks?

A slightly unrelated question: Can I use generic SATA disks ("enterprise class")? It's not like this thing is going to be used for anything really mission critical...

Thanks,
Max

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Asked On
2009-08-20 at 15:44:02ID24669865
Tags

EMC

,

AX100

,

SAN

,

Storage

,

FLARE

,

Dell

Topics

Storage Technology

,

Hard Drives & Storage

,

VMware

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: MaxwellbPosted on 2009-08-21 at 09:39:35ID: 25153530

Anyone? Even if you just know the answer to one of the questions...

Thanks!
-Max

 

by: meyersdPosted on 2009-08-21 at 20:36:29ID: 25157304

Without the right disks, it's little better than a dorrstop, I'm afraid. You are correct that the OS for the array (the FLARE) is on drives 0-3. If you don't have these, the array cannot boot. The drives themselves are formatted to 520 bytes per sector and EMC specific firmware, so you cannot use ordinary SAS or SATA drives either. I can't understand why someone would pull all the drives out - it was a pretty brainless thing to do. If you can locate the original drives, it is possible to get the system working again, but it'll take a bit of effort.

 

by: MaxwellbPosted on 2009-08-22 at 00:41:02ID: 25157794

Hi meyersd,

Thanks for the reply! Any idea if Flare be loaded onto new certified EMC disks? Or can EMC ship new disks with Flare?

Thanks,
Max

 

by: meyersdPosted on 2009-08-22 at 00:55:58ID: 25157834

EMC have disks with FLARE on them as a spare part - there is a special procedure that you use to recover the array (you only need one FLARE drive as once one SP boots, it can recover the rest from the single copy). Once the FLARE disks are recovered,  you'll then need to upgrade the FLARE to teh latest version. The cost of spare part disks may make this irrelevant - it may be cheaper to purchase a brand new AX4.

 

by: MaxwellbPosted on 2009-08-23 at 00:41:55ID: 25161679

Thanks for the info! Any idea if the FLARE OS version is the same for Dell branded as EMC branded? Or if the iSCSI version is different than the Fiber?

Thanks!
-Max

 

by: meyersdPosted on 2009-08-23 at 03:47:08ID: 25162112

Dell and EMC badged arrays shared the same FLARE and the differences between the iSCSI and FC versions is in the SP hardware only, so no worries there, either.

 

by: meyersdPosted on 2010-03-21 at 23:02:50ID: 28201840

Thanks! Glad I could help.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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