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  • 1.  Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 8 days ago
    Edited by Mohammad Safir 8 days ago

    Hi , just wanted to understand how the Mapping looks like for each NVMe Drive from  (ESR0)-EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosure to an IBM i Partition on E1080 which has dedicated (EJ24)-PCIe x16 to CXP Converter Cards.

    Can we Mirror NVMe Drives from first NED to an NVME Drive from Second NED?

    Can we share single NED with multiple IBM i Partition without VIOS?.

    How do we calculate Usable Capacity on NED?

    If there is an Webex session already there on NED mapping with IBM i  partitions, please share.



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    Mohammad Safir
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  • 2.  RE: Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 8 days ago
    Edited by Satid S 8 days ago

    Dear Mohammad

    >>>> Can we Mirror NVMe Drives from first NED to an NVME Drive from Second NED? <<<<

    Yes, please look at the details in my post in this past thread: https://community.ibm.com/community/user/power/discussion/ibmi-mirror-nvm     

    By the way, since NVMe is much more physically stable than HDD of the past, doing mirror would waste too much usable disk space.   And if you decide to go for RAID-5, it would be good NOT to allocate all name spaces from the same NED to an LPAR.  Try to divide name spaces to both NEDs and allocate then to the same LPAR for best performance.

    >>>> Can we share single NED with multiple IBM i Partition without VIOS?.  <<<<

    Yes, but if you do mirroring, you should allocate mirrored-pair name spaces from the 2 NEDs to each LPAR.   You can do mirroring between different NVMe from the same NED but it is a less useful way to do it.

     

    >>>> How do we calculate Usable Capacity on NED? <<<<

    I see no way for knowing exactly.  After you format the NVMe, you can see what is available. You may be able to use almost all of it depending on the size of the name space you create.  DST/SST provides you with disk space info when you create name spaces.



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    Satid S
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  • 3.  RE: Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 7 days ago

    We have a Two CEC E1080 machine with three iOS partition without VIOS.. we need three different disk capacity requirement for each iOS partition, can we prepare capacity requirement for each partition to a single NED or we should provide three NEDs for each iOS partition? what would be best practice here.



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    Mohammad Safir
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  • 4.  RE: Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 6 days ago
      |   view attached

    Dear Mohammad

    >>>>  can we prepare capacity requirement for each partition to a single NED or we should provide three NEDs for each iOS partition <<<<

    You can do it any way as there is no mandatory requirement nor restriction.   How many NED do you have?      Since you indicate there are 2 CECs, I would wish you have 2 NEDs, each of which connects to each CEC/IO drawer.  Then, for the best HW availability and performance, I would mirror NVM in one NED against the other NED and distribute all mirrored name spaces to all LPARs according to each need.   I also would deploy distributed dual HW (LAN, Tape interface card. etc) in those 2 CECs/IO drawers as well.   This is just an old idea that existed for a long time now as you can see in the presentation I attach herewith.



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    Satid S
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  • 5.  RE: Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 4 days ago

    Thanks Satid S

    Your recommendation to use Two NEDS with two CECs remains the same even if we use IBM i in Native Mode or configuration based on VIOS?



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    Mohammad Safir
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  • 6.  RE: Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 3 days ago

    >>>> Your recommendation to use Two NEDS with two CECs remains the same even if we use IBM i in Native Mode or configuration based on VIOS? <<<<

    The idea applies to both cases because this is about HW resource which has nothing specific to do with OS. 



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    Satid S
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  • 7.  RE: Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 19 hours ago

    Mohammad   Fortra provides an IBM Power Capacity Planning service which not only includes the model and core analysis but storage and memory as well.   This includes internal NVMe drive in the CEC or external.   If you are interested, please let me know and I can tell you how to engage.    randy.watson@fortra.com



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    Randy Watson
    President
    MPG
    Boulder CO
    30039399785
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  • 8.  RE: Multiple EXP24U.2 NVMe SAS Storage Enclosures on E080

    Posted 8 days ago

    >>>> If there is an Webex session already there on NED mapping with IBM i  partitions, please share. <<<<

    If you go to Youtube and search with "ibm i nvme", you will see 2 videos on this subject. 



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    Satid S
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