is it possible to move a storage shelf from one 5220 to another?

[effiko]

We have an old 5220 with 36 TB serving as media server+msdp. We have bought now a new 5220 with two storage shelvs (72 TB). we need to expand the old media server and use the new 5220 as an integrated backup but with only 36TB.

In order to save all the work of moving all clients to the new larger media we'd like to remove one shelf from the new 5220 and add it to an already running 5220 as a media server.

I understand we'll have to re-image the new 5220 with only one shelf (36TB).

questions are:

1. is this going to impact the maintenance warenty?

2. Has nybody done it?

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

Is the new one has not been used then there shouldn't be too many issue adding it to the old unit (not sure about warranty or anything though!!)

You need to shut down the old one (head first and then power off the shelf) then connect the new shelf

Power up the first shelf (the original one) and once full up power up the second shelf

Once fully up power up the appliance with keyboard and monitor attached (or connect to console via IPMI)

Hit F6 to check the boot order and correct if needs be

Once all up you shoul dbe able to add the new unit and expand your de-dupe onto it (specifying a new size of 64 TB)

If the new one has never been set up then you dont need to do anything - just power it up as the second shelf is not always added by default anyway - if you have powered it up but not configured it then just go into the CLISH and Remove the unit first.

The only issue you do get with unmatched shelves is sometime they will just not add in - this is easliy corrected using volume manager commands so get back to me if that happens

I have added shelves to existing appliances and apart from the odd volume manager command being required (1 in 4 have done this to me) it has been fine

Hope this helps

[effiko]

Hi Mark'

Thanks for the full answer, I'll follow your steps.

However I am still concerned with the warenty. As no one from Symantec commented, I'll open a case for that. Meanwhile I'll mark you as solution.

BR

[Mark_Solutions]

Do let us know what Symantec say - I cannot really see an issue with it as you own the appliances and the shelf so although they ship as a matched set I cannot see whay you cannot use the shelf with which ever appliance you choose to

Let us know the final outcome

[effiko]

As soon as we get a formal answer, I'll post it here.

[Chad_Wansing2]

First off, you can keep doing what you're doing but allow the existing 36TB media server to do the dedupe operations for data getting stored on the new 72TB unit.  Just make sure the existing media server is allowed to talk to the new storage server and storage unit (check boxes in the NBU admin console).  This way things can get stored on the 76TB box without any changes.  Really, as long as both media servers are allowed to both storage servers/storage units the jobs will leverage the least busy media server for most cases.

Also, to add any shelf to a 5220, no reimage is required.  Even if the shelf is not detected as expected most of the time you can fix that using CLISH commands

THAT BEING SAID, you are right to be very careful.  In the Symantec support systems, if a 5220 was ordered as more than a 4TB unit the external shelves are serialized to the serial number of the 5220 head.  Not to say you can't/won't get support, but there is a mapping so we can track supportability of what gets sold.  I would engage with someone from support to make sure whatever steps they might need to take are done to ensure supportability.

As Mark mentioned above, the shelves are matched to the head at the factory to ensure a smooth implementation process.  Here is a comment from the gentleman that actually made the decision:

> When the system is built it is done so with the drives/shelf and the compute node.  If there is a shelf that is initialized on a different raid controller, it will come up in the BIOS as "foreign configuration detected, do you want to import?" If there is no response, and since most people not knowing what this means will let it go and the drives will NOT be imported to the controller and the customer will then only see the base configuration.  There is then a call to support that their external drives do not work.

> I am the guy who made the call to match the drives with the node so that the bring up will be easy.  It also creates a higher level of quality as the entire system is tested and burned in prior to shipment.  This eliminates a lot of misconfigurations and potential hidden issues.

If you've got any additional questions, please feel free to let me know!

[effiko]

First thank you chad for the enlighting comments.

Following is the official reply we got from Symantec. As such, I will discourage the customer from doing the operation. Rather we'll add the new unit to the domain and move all backups to that unit untill all images expire on the old one. Then, we'll decommission the old 5220 and re-image it as needed.

                   Legal and warranty issue :

Is it possible to move a storage shelf from one 5220 to another : Answer is yes

Legal : No

Warranty : Yes

The support for the add-on will expire together with the old appliance .Need to gather additional JBOD information  and update to support so it should get updated in databases for the additional component.

Technically :

This will require changing the machine details in our database and also physically moving memory from one 5220 to another where CE intervention would require.

But it depends how old the appliance is. If you have old appliance which came with extra memory as a standard then wouldn’t require any modification on hardware level.