Summary: Expanding storage on an X4500

From: Mike Brodbelt <mike_at_last.fm>
Date: Wed Nov 12 2008 - 13:36:16 EST
Thanks to all those who replied to me on this question.

My vendor's original position that it wasn't possible to expand the
X4500 was incorrect - there are several expansion options. However, a
couple of other people who replied had been told that the X4500 couldn't
be expanded, so misinformation in this area doesn't seem uncommon.

The X4500 has several listed FC HBAs - in particular, the SG-XPCI2FC-QF4
and SG-XPCI2FC-QF2-Z HBA's are explicitly supported with the 2540 FC
array. The only dowside of FC storage is that it gets very expensive
copared to the cost of the X4500 itself.

Additionally, the SG-XPCI8SAS-E-Z SAS HBA is listed as supported with
the X4500. The full list of option cards is here:-

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4500/optioncards.jsp

However, my vendor has heard from Sun that the J series JBODs are not
qualified with the X4500, and there are no plans to change this. So, J
series units might work, but they seem not to be officially blessed. I'd
be really curious if anyone out there has tried it though....

One final suggestion I had was to use an additional X4500, a pair of
HBA's in each, and COMSTAR (http://opensolaris.org/os/project/comstar/).
This should make the second system look like a FC target.

Many thanks to all those who replied, hope this info is useful to others
heading down the same path. If anyone out there does try the SAS HBA
with a J series array, please let me know :-).

Mike
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Received on Wed Nov 12 13:36:40 2008

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