HDD/RAID changes only with DSS reboot ?!

Hello!

We have a new DSS (Supermicro Mainboard X7DBE, Xeon Quad Core E5420, 4 GB RAM, Areca Raid Controller ARC-1261 ML 16xSATA II, ...). Now we try to change/expand the HDDs, but DSS doesn't recognize the changes without the reboot of DSS! Each time we add a HDD or expand a RAID or do other changes in RAID-Subsystem DSS needs a complete reboot to view the correct new configuration ... :mad: .

This is not feasible, because each reboot of DSS requires a shutdown/reboot of ALL servers, which are using a iSCSI drive. It's an absolutely "must have" of a storage server to be online expandable!

What's the problem? Do you also have this problem? What the solution?

Thanx!

regards,
Lukas

Could this be a problem with the Areca 1261,
I recently added and expanded my RAID without rebooting.
I did it from the hardware RAID tab, and used rescan.

What RAID controller do you have? We don't have the button "rescan" at the H/W RAID tab ... (!?), only the button "Areca" which opens the Areca RAID web management.

@ open-e support: Any solution? Firmware? Driver? DSS update ...? ARC-1260 is in your compatibility list, what's the difference to ARC-1261?

regards,
Lukas

--------------------------
Modell: Data Storage Server
Version: 5.0.DB47000000.3216
Erscheinungsdatum: 2008-08-28

Controller Name ARC-1261
Firmware Version V1.44 2008-1-31
BOOT ROM Version V1.44 2008-1-28

Our storage vendor (open-e partner) tested the ARC-1680, which is also in comp. list, same troubles ... :(

Some comments from open-e support ...?

that's wired... I am going to test it with my 3ware card

but did you press the rescan.. I believe Torpedo-Ray means the one in the volume group tab...

G'day Luka,
For what it is worth, we have an Areca 1210, and after reconfiguring the array it is detected fine after a Rescan.
But one thing we did do was have to wait until the controller had finished creating the array, ie the controller does not report the change until it is complete. (which kinda makes sense.)

Rgds Ben.

I just had the exact same problem with the areca 1261 - so this issue is not solved yet..
I hope open-e fill fix this soon, its a pain to have to reboot the machines. Especially in a iSCSI failover scenario.

Hi,

I just have the same issue here but with a 3ware 9650SE-8LPML.
I had 3 1TB units in RAID5, I added a 4th unit to the array using the 3DM2 interface, no hassles here. The array was expanded online on the live without any need to reboot or other downtime.

Now I want that extra space to be visible in DSS, I tryed Rescan in Volume manager, but the old unit size shows up.

Do I need to reboot DSS in order for it to see the extra space??

Well, I found that the reboot is not really necessary in a response on another topic. However the system got quite unstable since then, with NAS shares not showing up.

I believe that the Resize LV option reseted my connections and somehow the servers could not reconnect afterwards.. :|

Did the RAID complete the migration and if it did and rescan did not work to see the new unit try the PV Resize tool located in the Console screen in the Extended tools menu (CTRL + ALT + X).

Any errors in the event viewer?

Yes, the PV Resize did it, but the connections were all reset, and some NFS mounts got stale.

The problem is that when I did the PV Resize, the tools didn't show up a warning stating that connections could be reset, otherwise I would have done that sometime later when most users were not affected.

The same is true for enabling Volume replication.
All connections for this volume are lost without a warning!