Equallogic SAN issue

Bloody Jack Kidd · March 06, 2014, 12:48:10 PM

Anyone running an older EQL SAN?

We had one suddenly start generating alerts on the drive firmware; actually SANHQ started generating alerts, but not it appears that all the drives have firmware that is suddenly incompatible with the SAN.

Mark · March 06, 2014, 01:39:07 PM

I am not familiar with this, but is it possible the firmware on the SAN was updated and now that is why the firmware on the drives is "incompatible"?

Bloody Jack Kidd · March 06, 2014, 02:22:09 PM

Nope, the sudden alerts from SANHQ did not coincide with any changes to the SAN environment.

One of EQLs solutions is to disable or ignore the alerts... not really what I call a solution.

Mark · March 06, 2014, 02:42:58 PM

Is there a firmware update for the drives? Maybe it's just throwing the wrong error event?

Bloody Jack Kidd · March 06, 2014, 03:21:51 PM

Drives are mixed XR38 and PD04 - PD0A is latest. Unfortunately, this Array with these particular controllers could not (under most circumstances) do a firmware update to the drives. It was a known limitation.

However, with some EQL help, all the drives were recently flashed to PD0A.

Strange thing is, only SANHQ complained - there were no alerts in Group Manager.

Mark · March 06, 2014, 03:23:39 PM

Interesting for sure. All this EQL lingo is foreign to me. My Dell SAN is simple to manage though! lol

Bloody Jack Kidd · March 06, 2014, 03:24:42 PM

LoL - Dell bought EQL.

Mark · March 06, 2014, 03:26:02 PM

I know. But, you are not using Dell's MDM for the EQL I'm sure. And, if the controller had this limitation, then it wouldn't help anyway.

I have had to update firmware on my SAN before, but it was a piece of cake.

Bloody Jack Kidd · March 06, 2014, 03:57:09 PM

Firmware on the EQL is a breeze - basically I have to type 'update' and 'restart'

updating the firmware on the individual drives seemed a bit more involved.

Mark · March 06, 2014, 04:25:43 PM

I wonder if they will change anything. I have heard mixed theories, but after the purchase of EQL it was rumored that the PowerVault line would go away. Then it was countered that they still need a low-end product or whatever so it would stay.

But, the Dell MDM (Modular Disk Manager) is pretty simple to use once you get familiar with it. Think I highlighted a drive and just clicked update firmware somewhere. It was click-simple.