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  • 1.  Controlling expansion enclosures

    Posted Tue February 15, 2022 03:46 PM
    Good morning,

    In my home lab, I have two expansion controllers which I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) I couldn't manage without a controller enclouse (manage at least for seeing errors or similar, access web or ssh...). One of them is a EXPM2524 (IBM PN 69Y2921) expansion module. I have another expansion module too similar (IBM PN 85Y6052), it seems a bit older because it has 300GB disks instead of 600GB. How could I be able to manage that expansion enclosures with ssh, web or whatever?. See if they have errors?. Or should I buy a especific control enclosure for being able to manage them?.

    I can use them, because I can see their disks with a SAS HBA controller. But... how could I see the errors or problems could arise?.

    Thanks a lot in advance,
    Best regards,

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    Egoitz Aurrekoetxea
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    #Storage
    #PrimaryStorage
    #StorageManagementandReporting


  • 2.  RE: Controlling expansion enclosures

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 07:51 AM

    Hello Egoitz,

    I assume you found this documentation? https://www.istoragenetworks.com/servermanuals/ibm-exp2512-exp2524-maintenance-guide.pdf

    Note that this expansion unit is really old (11-12 years) so you cannot really trust the hardware, the connectors, the fans etc. anymore.

    There is no specific mgmt client for expansion units, as they do not include the RAID controller. It's a daisy-chain of SAS drives, plus the enclosure hw services monitoring (called ESM or environmental service module). The software that comes with the server's RAID controller knowns how to interpret the enclosure service counters. Example: the storage mgmt software for the IBM Bladecenter (for which this expansion was designed) will show errors that come up in the disks AND in the enclosure monitoring.

    If you do not have access to such a software, you can still telnet to the ethernet port and run commandline operations:
    Please see chapter 6 in the above document.

    collsvcsnap and drvpres could be good starting points.

    I'm afraid I don't have any lookup table for internal hex codes. Hope this helps anyway.

    - Axel -



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    Axel Koester
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  • 3.  RE: Controlling expansion enclosures

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 09:37 AM
    Expansion controllers have little or no intelligence. 
    The controllers do all the clever stuff. 
    Errors with disk will only be visible in  the same way as any other JBOD on any other disk shelf.

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    Alastair Bell
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  • 4.  RE: Controlling expansion enclosures

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 09:37 AM

    Hi Egoitz

    EXP2500 connects directly to select System x servers using an IBM ServeRAID M5025 or M5120 Controller.

    EXP2524

    Mode details
    https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/9/897/ENUS114-139/index.html

    Hardware Interoperability Matrix for Storwize V3500 and V3700 Software Levels

    https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1078389



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    Nysten Macedo
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  • 5.  RE: Controlling expansion enclosures

    Posted Fri February 18, 2022 07:23 PM
    85Y6052 is a 24x2.5" SAS 6Gbit expansion drawer that belonged to a V7000 Gen 1.  It has SAS expanders inside, and does not have a controller.

    69Y2921 is an X-Series 24x2.5" SAS 6Gbit expansion drawer that is sold for direct system attachment.  It has SAS expanders inside, and does not have a controller.

    All status monitoring would be through a SAS HBA in your own server.  These are typically LSILogic controllers re-branded with IBM firmware, but you could use others depending on what feature set you needed (hot-swap, drive bay attention LED activation, RAID vs JBOD, etc.)

    Any monitoring would need to be a daemon that runs on your server, and performs whatever actions are required.  If it's JBOD only, then you'd configure software RAID.  If it's a full-function card, then you could configure your RAID in the adapter.

    Whatever you use to configure the RAID is also what you would use to poll device status, and send alerts.  You could script this, but some driver kits include email support.  You could also use something like nagios or other monitoring tools to provide a web interface.

    However, that would 100% be from your server, and not from the drawer itself.

    Remember, an enterprise controller, such as a v7000, is literally a Linux server in a small form factor, with software installed on it to monitor and do all of this for you, plus to provision arrays (mdisks / volume groups), and LUns (vdisks / logical volumes), and to share them out (scsi target mode) over iscsi, sas, or fibre channel. and a cluster for the management GUI.

    When you do not buy an enterprise storage array controller, you have to build it yourself.


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    Josh-Daniel Davis
    Highland Village TX
    6824293040
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  • 6.  RE: Controlling expansion enclosures

    Posted Fri March 04, 2022 09:30 AM
    Expansion controllers have little or no intelligence.
    The controllers do all the clever stuff.
    Errors with the disk will only be visible in the same way as any other JBOD on any additional disk shelf.

    ------------------------------
    Johnny Bravo
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