EqualLogic: replacing disk with off-the-shelf disks?

Can anyone confirm the truth about this whole vendor lock out thing???
Because we have tons of EQ's so when a warranty runs out we can still get firmwares and stuff. And although we use all the old ones for stuff that is mostly testing, i will be very pissed if i updated the firmware and my EQ goes down. I know companies can tend to be sneaky about that kinda stuff but i doubt they'd do something like that.

It is not them being sneaky at all. If you have a valid warranty or support contract on your particular equipment, you will have access to service, firmware and other software. If you allow your support subscription to lapse you will not. The standard position from EQL and Dell is that they only support vendor supplied drives. If a particular firmware doesn't lock you in, that is no guarantee that the next one won't. If you don't like that, buy from another vendor that doesn't lock you.
 
Intentionally locking out a vendor that works previously is pretty sneaky.

As a side note, i've dug heavily into the firmwares and have found a command called "approvedrive" so it seems there is an override command. But to override it you need a key. would love to figure that out.
 
Reviving the old thread...

Did anyone try to add SSD to an existing "old" array (PSx00, PS4000, PS5000, PS6000) in order to enable the hybrid mode?
 
Just letting you all know I have just got hold of a used PS6000E. The firmware is V8.1.0 and there are three unsupported drives in it.
 
update on my 16 drive Samsung 850 PRO 512gb PS6000 array:
it's dead. 12 of the 16 drives died on a power loss and restore. I had moved ALL corporate data off the array a few days earlier as 1 of the drives failed and I got spooked when I put a replacement drive in and I saw the message "unauthorized drive detected and disabled".
I have ordered 16 600gb Equallogic brand drives, and 16 SAS trays. I'm going to make this thing genuine. I think I learned my lesson.
The dead samsung drives won't initialize. it's crazy! I suspect on boot up the array gives slightly too much voltage, or something like that. I really don't know exactly what happened, but I'm sitting here with 12 dead drives.
so FYI to everyone. be careful. I have a 2nd Equallogic san only use as a replication target, that is full of NON equallogic drives, but they are NOT SSD, so I feel like they are good. who knows.
 
Wait, you have a box where 75% of the drives were blown out physically in one fell swoop, and you ordered 16 new drives to drop back into the same enclosure?
 
Yes, is that crazy? I'll test it for days, and power it off and on many times to make sure the EQL brand drives don't do the same thing.
for no good reason, I really think the enclosure is ok, right?!?!?! I was using drives that are NOT designed for enterprise use.
thoughts? now you've got me worried.
 
What happens if you put these drives in a PC, the SSDs? I cannot see the EQL brand having anything whatsoever to do with the issue. After all, the EQL drives, certainly in mine are no more than Constellations with a custom firmware. I could understand some power surge at boot perhaps. I have a couple of 512GB 850 Pro and old PS4000E I have coming was where they were going for testing.

How has it been with the SSDs until this incident? All good?
 
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I operated on the 850 Pros for 1 year with zero issues.
more details: I was testing this morning if the "drive disabled" messages was real so I pulled a random drive and the "disabled" spare started to rebuild. So, the drive disabled message is not real. So, I replaced the drive I had pulled, and it came back as bad.... but another, new, drive in the same slot: bad. google search revealed someone else with the same issue (single slot saying any drive inserted is bad). they said to power off/on the san. it fixed the "bad" slot for that guy. for me it killed my drives. ??
I did something dumb in the power off: I powered of via toggle switch one of the PS, then 4 seconds later the 2nd PS. maybe that was really dumb?!?!?
EDIT: put a "failed" ssd in a PC sata. PC doesn't see it. not even at boot. 30 second pause at boot as it tries to find it, then boot continues with no drive found.
 
I know these are not the same but for the EVO:

Allowable Voltage 5V ± 5% Allowable voltage

Thats +/- a quarter of a volt, I wonder if it surged and killed them. Very worrying anyway. Can you RMA them?
 
Given what you have said, My guess is that one or both of the power supplies or power regulation on the expander/backplanes is borked on that box. As I mentioned above, it would be insanity to just pop 16 new drives into the box until I discovered the fault because you might just find a repeat of your SSD failures.
 
So, it turns out I had zero network cables plugged into the second controller during my whole "drive fail drama". I'm not sure if that led to the array freaking out. In any case I have put 16 eql brand drives in the enclosure. BUT it took about 7 days to initialize the raid6 array (15k 600gb drives). WTF is wrong with the enclosure?! bad controllers?! bad voltage on the PS as you mentioned? Last night I had a drive fail, the hot spare failed too. I just replaced both and it's rebuilding, but still 0%. I have a feeling I'm in for a 7-8 day rebuild. What would cause super slow rebuilds on an eql chassis? There is zero production data on this box, as I'm afraid of it. I can buy an chassis w/ ps and controllers for a few thousand on ebay, maybe that's the best option.
thoughts?!

is there a better place to post generic equallogic problems?

Given what you have said, My guess is that one or both of the power supplies or power regulation on the expander/backplanes is borked on that box. As I mentioned above, it would be insanity to just pop 16 new drives into the box until I discovered the fault because you might just find a repeat of your SSD failures.
 
jordanl17, before your array crashed, which firmware was it running?
Were the SSD recognized as "SSD" or "SATA" drives?

I'm also looking for a place to post/talk about third party drivers (SSD, SAS, hybrid, SATA, etc) and EQL...
If you know such a place, just tell 8)
 
geez.....damn it. I forgot. I think they showed up as SSD. It did work beautifully for 1+ years! I had forgotten the plug in the network cables for the 2nd controller. I think when the unit was tying to use the 2nd controller it freaked out. I really don't know what happened.

jordanl17, before your array crashed, which firmware was it running?
Were the SSD recognized as "SSD" or "SATA" drives?

I'm also looking for a place to post/talk about third party drivers (SSD, SAS, hybrid, SATA, etc) and EQL...
If you know such a place, just tell 8)
 
Just an update for you guys. My PS6000E has four drives fail since I go it, they would have been very old. I have been replacing them with: 2TB Seagate ST2000NM0033 Constellation ES.3 Enterprise

They seem to be working just fine. I get the usual method about unsupported drive etc but they seem to be running very well, eventually I should end up with 32TB of storage rather than 16TB

I also heard somewhere that the PS6000E will take 3TB drives but I haven't tried it. Also, the above drives work fine in my PS4000E
 
I've had a number of clients that originally purchased PS4000 and PS6000s with 250GB or 500GB drives end up swapping out all of their drives under warranty for newer 1TB units. The purchased 4TB or 8TB Raw units and ended p with 16TB after they swapped the last drives. of course you have to effectively factory reset the unit for the array to utilize all 16TB, but that's a cheap upgrade.
 
Just an update for you guys. My PS6000E has four drives fail since I go it, they would have been very old. I have been replacing them with: 2TB Seagate ST2000NM0033 Constellation ES.3 Enterprise

They seem to be working just fine. I get the usual method about unsupported drive etc but they seem to be running very well, eventually I should end up with 32TB of storage rather than 16TB

I also heard somewhere that the PS6000E will take 3TB drives but I haven't tried it. Also, the above drives work fine in my PS4000E

Purchased a PS6100E caddy off of eBay for a song, have been working on getting drives for it, currently have 6, ST1000NM0001 1TB Dell Seagate Constellation with PN04 firmware that work and don't come up with errors. With the 2TB drives you've been using are they Dell specific or just generic Seagate Constellation?

Thanks in advance for the info.
 
FYI. If I remember right the PS6000E is a Xyratex RS1603 oem made by Xyratex for Dell and you can potentially load Xyratex firmware onto it. Dell never really made any of their Equallogic stuff. They had it made from a few different OEM's over the years. We have a few of their RS1220 shelves with the F6412 controllers. Xyratex also OEM'd different models for many other brands like IBM, HP (3PAR), Overland, Data Direct, Autodesk, Sun, etc....

When you determine exactly which controller you have, with some digging about online you might also find some other OEM branded firmware that enables other paid features as well like snapshots, enhanced web management, and whatnot. For the RS1220 (F6412) ones we have I was able to get ahold of some Autodesk firmware which has all features fully licensed/enabled and it also accepts just about any SAS/SATA drive I can stick in them. Even ones not specifically in the firmware release notes as being supported work fine. I've yet to try any SSD's in them though. The ones I have are 12 drive 3.5" shelves and are getting a bit old but I have two of them loaded with 600GB SAS drives and the third is loaded with 2TB NL-SAS drives (ST32000424SS Seagate). Eventually I need to look at replacing the ones I have with newer 2.5" drive models.

Xyratex was bought up by Seagate a few years ago but they have left their old FTP site up which has just about all of the firmware they made for the different models they have at ftp.xyratex.com.... :)
 
Purchased a PS6100E caddy off of eBay for a song, have been working on getting drives for it, currently have 6, ST1000NM0001 1TB Dell Seagate Constellation with PN04 firmware that work and don't come up with errors. With the 2TB drives you've been using are they Dell specific or just generic Seagate Constellation?

Thanks in advance for the info.

Sorry, I have only just seen this, my disks are just plain Seagate.

My next experiment which I now have the hardware for, just haven't time to try, is to put type 7 PS6000 controllers into a PS4000.
 
FYI. If I remember right the PS6000E is a Xyratex RS1603 oem made by Xyratex for Dell and you can potentially load Xyratex firmware onto it. Dell never really made any of their Equallogic stuff. They had it made from a few different OEM's over the years. We have a few of their RS1220 shelves with the F6412 controllers. Xyratex also OEM'd different models for many other brands like IBM, HP (3PAR), Overland, Data Direct, Autodesk, Sun, etc....

When you determine exactly which controller you have, with some digging about online you might also find some other OEM branded firmware that enables other paid features as well like snapshots, enhanced web management, and whatnot. For the RS1220 (F6412) ones we have I was able to get ahold of some Autodesk firmware which has all features fully licensed/enabled and it also accepts just about any SAS/SATA drive I can stick in them. Even ones not specifically in the firmware release notes as being supported work fine. I've yet to try any SSD's in them though. The ones I have are 12 drive 3.5" shelves and are getting a bit old but I have two of them loaded with 600GB SAS drives and the third is loaded with 2TB NL-SAS drives (ST32000424SS Seagate). Eventually I need to look at replacing the ones I have with newer 2.5" drive models.

Xyratex was bought up by Seagate a few years ago but they have left their old FTP site up which has just about all of the firmware they made for the different models they have at ftp.xyratex.com.... :)

Any of the software related to the model you showed was dated 2009 at the latest, the site is gone now anyway. Excellent try though :)
 
I operated on the 850 Pros for 1 year with zero issues.
more details: I was testing this morning if the "drive disabled" messages was real so I pulled a random drive and the "disabled" spare started to rebuild. So, the drive disabled message is not real. So, I replaced the drive I had pulled, and it came back as bad.... but another, new, drive in the same slot: bad. google search revealed someone else with the same issue (single slot saying any drive inserted is bad). they said to power off/on the san. it fixed the "bad" slot for that guy. for me it killed my drives. ??
I did something dumb in the power off: I powered of via toggle switch one of the PS, then 4 seconds later the 2nd PS. maybe that was really dumb?!?!?
EDIT: put a "failed" ssd in a PC sata. PC doesn't see it. not even at boot. 30 second pause at boot as it tries to find it, then boot continues with no drive found.

Umm, I am new to Equalogics myself, he have a new stack here recently setup by Dell that I have inherited. Up until now I have mostly only worked with NetApp in 7-mode.

Anyway, I am pretty sure you want to be more careful about halting your system before you hit those circuit breakers, and I think you can give yourself additional headaches if you are getting things in the wrong order when it comes to iSCSI connections to your file server or whatever is using this storage. Just in case you are forgetting to power up your storage before your servers or vice verse when shutting down. I am also pretty sure this could effect how your management software is seeing the storage arrays.

If any of this is unneeded advice and your on it, please don't get mad. I'd rather risk pissing you off than letting you swing.
 
I just want to add that as far as I can tell, putting a PS6000 controller into a PS4000 seems to work just fine. In fact the GUI now shows the PS4000 as a type PS6000
 
I am a long term user and fanboy of the EqualLogic arrays. I've been using them since early 2009. I've been through many PS5000XV, PS5000E, PS6000X models and currently have 3 PS6000E models... 2 are my "home production" arrays and 1 is a replication partner out to my guest house on the same property. I only replicate "critical" volumes for backup and protection. All arrays are running non-OEM Hitachi 2TB 7200 rpm drives. Yes, they complain, but I've never had a problem with drives being locked out and I've replaced failed drives and the arrays rebuild normally. I am running the most current firmware available from Dell. I've tried 3TB and 4TB drives, but they show up as weird sizes less than 2TB. I haven't tried SSD as I need capacity, not speed.
 
I am a long term user and fanboy of the EqualLogic arrays. I've been using them since early 2009. I've been through many PS5000XV, PS5000E, PS6000X models and currently have 3 PS6000E models... 2 are my "home production" arrays and 1 is a replication partner out to my guest house on the same property. I only replicate "critical" volumes for backup and protection. All arrays are running non-OEM Hitachi 2TB 7200 rpm drives. Yes, they complain, but I've never had a problem with drives being locked out and I've replaced failed drives and the arrays rebuild normally. I am running the most current firmware available from Dell. I've tried 3TB and 4TB drives, but they show up as weird sizes less than 2TB. I haven't tried SSD as I need capacity, not speed.

Any chance of the exact model of Hitachi please, its will be good to add to our list of know working drives.
 
Any chance of the exact model of Hitachi please, its will be good to add to our list of know working drives.
Sure, they are actually the same (or similar in some cases) models of Hitachi's Dell commonly shipped with the EqualLogic arrays, just without the Dell firmware. I use Hitachi Ultrastar A7K2000 2TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" from Newegg.

Something I *would* like to know... how this guy got 4TB drives working in a PS6000E. http://www.ebay.com/itm/191938327250

He calls them SAS, but I assume he means NL-SAS, as there was never a 4TB SAS drive released... that I know of. Using 4TB drives in my PS6000E's would extend their life in my home environment tremendously.
 
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A few years ago, to find some additional compatible drive models on a couple of older Xyratex branded units I have I looked as the units firmware with a hex editor and found some strings that were Seagate model numbers. Might be something else to look into.... Thats also where I found some hidden console mode commands for engineering tests as well as the commands for copying the firmware from one specific drive into memory and then updating other drives with that firmware. Pretty much everything you could do in the serial console was in plain text in the firmware bin and not too had to find using a text or hex editor. Mine was a slightly different model though and actual Xyratex, not OEM branded so this might not be helpful.... Used to be abel to get all the Xyratex firmware but since Seagate bought them out the old Xyratex FTP server is gone.
 
Something I *would* like to know... how this guy got 4TB drives working in a PS6000E. http://www.ebay.com/itm/191938327250
Has anyone purchased this array from this seller? For whatever reason he is completely ignoring my request for clarification. Are they supported drives with Dell firmware? What model drives? What changes were necessary to support 4TB drives?
 
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I am a long term user and fanboy of the EqualLogic arrays. I've been using them since early 2009. I've been through many PS5000XV, PS5000E, PS6000X models and currently have 3 PS6000E models... 2 are my "home production" arrays and 1 is a replication partner out to my guest house on the same property. I only replicate "critical" volumes for backup and protection. All arrays are running non-OEM Hitachi 2TB 7200 rpm drives. Yes, they complain, but I've never had a problem with drives being locked out and I've replaced failed drives and the arrays rebuild normally. I am running the most current firmware available from Dell. I've tried 3TB and 4TB drives, but they show up as weird sizes less than 2TB. I haven't tried SSD as I need capacity, not speed.


The array reports them at under 2TB or you present them to a server and the server says it's 2TB ?
 
The array reports them at under 2TB or you present them to a server and the server says it's 2TB ?
The array actually reports the physical drives as less than 2TB. I think the number reported is based off the old style of cylinders, tracks, heads. Traditionally if one of these numbers exceeds the allocated bit count for the field, weird stuff happens. That's just my opinion though.
 
The array actually reports the physical drives as less than 2TB. I think the number reported is based off the old style of cylinders, tracks, heads. Traditionally if one of these numbers exceeds the allocated bit count for the field, weird stuff happens. That's just my opinion though.


Not challenging you in any way. It's just that if the physical isn't reporting correctly it seems you going to be headed for trouble no matter what.
 
Not challenging you in any way. It's just that if the physical isn't reporting correctly it seems you going to be headed for trouble no matter what.
At that point just invest in a nice Synology, kick back and relax, and call it a day :)
 
At that point just invest in a nice Synology, kick back and relax, and call it a day :)

I prefer my NetApp systems, they're what I am used to managing. That being said, I really need to expand and learn about Hitachi and EMC, perhaps 3PAR as well.

I just missed a SAN position on contract working for the VA in Austin because I didn't have enough experience with other storage systems, particularly these two vendor's systems. I tried to convince them that they all have far more in common then they do as differences but I think these people were really the tech guys. All storage systems are structured similarly, they communicate with the same protocols, etc. Face it, your either serving block storage or file storage, your doing with with ethernet or fiber. If it's ethernet then your using iSCSI, FCOE, NFS, CIFS or other file access protocols, and if it's fiber then your using iSCSI on FC. The same principles of data protection and availability rules apply across the board. IT is a technology area where the only constant is change and we are always learning new things so learning different systems is just part of the profession and any given customer might be using Hitachi and EMC today and in two years all their storage might be CISCO.

But it's hard to convince HR people and managers who never learned the secret handshake :cool:
 
Not challenging you in any way. It's just that if the physical isn't reporting correctly it seems you going to be headed for trouble no matter what.
That's why I don't use 4TB drives. My question is how the seller of the array on eBay is getting around the restriction.
 
That's why I don't use 4TB drives. My question is how the seller of the array on eBay is getting around the restriction.

The same system is being sold on another site with the same 4TB HD listing. In fact, the ebay seller name matches the other website listing.

I would simply contact the seller and ask. My first thought was that maybe the system was a different model of the 6000 series but then I looked up the spec sheets and none of the models listed support that much storage capacity. Now I think that the seller doesn't know what he has or is being a bad boy.
 
Actually, the SAN is probably has a low enough Firmware installed that 3rd party drives aren't blocked. He's not advertising it with Dell support, so there's no "bad boy" scenario here. Their support the offer in the description is an in-house support.
 
This is slightly off topic: can anyone here PLEASE provide me with link to d/l the latest Equallogic MEM v1.5 for ESXi integration?
 
Not on top.. but saw this.. had to respond..

I prefer my NetApp systems, they're what I am used to managing. That being said, I really need to expand and learn about Hitachi and EMC, perhaps 3PAR as well.

I just missed a SAN position on contract working for the VA in Austin because I didn't have enough experience with other storage systems, particularly these two vendor's systems. I tried to convince them that they all have far more in common then they do as differences but I think these people were really the tech guys. All storage systems are structured similarly, they communicate with the same protocols, etc. Face it, your either serving block storage or file storage, your doing with with ethernet or fiber. If it's ethernet then your using iSCSI, FCOE, NFS, CIFS or other file access protocols, and if it's fiber then your using iSCSI on FC. The same principles of data protection and availability rules apply across the board. IT is a technology area where the only constant is change and we are always learning new things so learning different systems is just part of the profession and any given customer might be using Hitachi and EMC today and in two years all their storage might be CISCO.

But it's hard to convince HR people and managers who never learned the secret handshake :cool:

After a bit of reflection, my post is very crappy and I apologize. There was no need for that. I'm sorry you missed out on a job, hopefully one will work out for you.
 
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Not on top.. but saw this.. had to respond..



After a bit of reflection, my post is very crappy and I apologize. There was no need for that. I'm sorry you missed out on a job, hopefully one will work out for you.

I must have missed your post, but I certainly accept your apology hopefully with the same good grace as it was delivered.

I didn't get that job the other day. It will likely open again another day. If I really want it, I'll go get what they want and watch for my opportunity. But I won't be narrow minded about it, I'll watch for other good ones as well.
 
I must have missed your post, but I certainly accept your apology hopefully with the same good grace as it was delivered.

I didn't get that job the other day. It will likely open again another day. If I really want it, I'll go get what they want and watch for my opportunity. But I won't be narrow minded about it, I'll watch for other good ones as well.

It was a really crappy post. Definitely not cool, and a very internet troll tough guy post. But if there is a silver lining.. I do live in Austin, and I can tell you that missing out on that gig at the VA may not have been a bad thing. If you are serious about getting a storage gig here in down, specifically on the EMC side of things.. Hit me up via PM. I'm have some contacts that might have a few leads.
 
The same system is being sold on another site with the same 4TB HD listing. In fact, the ebay seller name matches the other website listing.

I would simply contact the seller and ask. My first thought was that maybe the system was a different model of the 6000 series but then I looked up the spec sheets and none of the models listed support that much storage capacity. Now I think that the seller doesn't know what he has or is being a bad boy.
I have attempted to contact the seller MANY times... totally ignored my questions, no response. I have contacted him/them for other things and they response quickly. In fact, I have bought other things from the seller and they have actually bought things from me.

I suspect they have dissected the EqualLogic firmware (embedded Linux) and removed whatever soft limitations Dell put into the firmware. People have reported doing the same thing, and they find the reference to the limitation, but it requires an SSL cert to decrypt the code so it can be modified. Lookie but no touchie.

Even as such, as big of a fan as I am for the EqualLogic products, I continue use them. I recently bought a PS6610E with (42) 6TB drives. My intention was to replace my (3) PS6000E's with 2TB drives with one array. I quickly found that the PS6610E very much disables anything but a Dell Enterprise drive... and not just that, but a very specific "Config Code 1341" drive. I have purchased several Dell Enterprise 6TB drives that have the same OEM Seagate model number, that the PS6610E refused to spin up. This pushes me, a previously dedicate EqualLogic fan, over the edge. It will be going up for sale directly and I will be buying Synology. I have a Synology array I got cheap and I have been continually impressed by the OS, features and resiliency. I'm leaning towards the RS4021xs+, but it seems way overpriced for what it is. I'll likely end up getting the RS2818RP+. My biggest concern about the Synology is lack of swappable, redundant, controllers.
 
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