[Linux-cluster] HP msa20 and rhcs?

[Lon Hohberger]

On Mon, 2006-05-01 at 22:11 +0300, Omer Faruk Sen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I need a cheap shared storage and wanted to know if anyone in this list
> used HP MSA20  (shared SCSI) on rhcs? I want to setup a 2 node cluster
> with shared storage and cheapest HP shared storage seems to be MSA20..

I've never used one; maybe someone else has.

General rules of thumb when using SCSI shared storage:

* If it requires a specific controller to make the RAID work, it
probably is not a good bet, regardless of what the marketing literature
would have you believe.

* If it works with a plain-jane SCSI (ex- an Adaptec 2940U2W) card and
still has some way of accessing the array management tools (ex: a serial
port) for configuring/presenting the LUNs, it should generally "just
work".

There are undoubtedly exceptions to these rules.  I'm not at all
familiar with the MSA20.

I do, however, have a MSA500 which has been working fine.  The MSA500
needs CCISS controllers to talk to the on-board MSA controller and
configure the LUNs during bootup.  After that, the CCISS controllers act
as "dumb" SCSI cards when talking to the MSA500, or so it seems.  It's
been working fine in a 2-node failover cluster for a couple of years,
but I have not tried it with GFS.

Whether that means the MSA20 will work... I do not know.  It might ;)

-- Lon