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We have a single HP StoreEasy 1630 with the following disk configuration:

Pools   RAID    Drives  Capacity    Virtual_Disks   Physical_Disks  Size_Per_Disk
A       1       2       450GB           1           2               450GB
B       5       6       2.93TB          1           6               600GB
C       5       6       19.5            1           6               4TB

We need to expand Pool C and are considering purchasing an HP D2600 Disk Enclosure fully populated with 12 4TB disks.

  1. Can Pool C be extended by adding the new disks from the D2600?
  2. Should I cable the new D2600 using a single or dual domain configuration?

The StoreEasy 1630 has a P822 controller. The operating system of the StoreEasy 1630 is Windows Storage Server 2012 and the virtual disk in pool C is used as an iSCSI target.

ewwhite
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Robert
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1 Answers1

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The HP StoreEasy 1630 is really an HP ProLiant DL380e Gen8 system running Windows Storage Server 2012. As a result, some of the same techniques that are used for general HP ProLiant servers apply to your StoreEasy system.

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You have 6 x 4TB 3.5" LFF disks inside the server comprising the RAID Pool C. It appear as though you're interested in expanding that RAID group. You can use an HP external storage enclosure to accommodate additional drives. Everything is running through the SmartArray P822 RAID controller.

In order to expand the existing volume, the new drives would need to be the same size and type as the current disks (e.g. 4TB nearline/midline SAS).

From here, you have a few options.

  • Span the array across the server and the external enclosure.

If you do this, you are free to use an HP D2600 12-bay drive enclosure, but would need to purchase disks specific to that JBOD. The disk carriers are different between the D2600 and your server. You'd need HP Part #693689-B21. The performance between disks on the internal expander and the external enclosure's expander could be an issue. I wouldn't take this approach. The D2600 is solid hardware, but old technology. It may not be worth investing in today.

  • Put all of the Pool C disks in the external enclosure.

This makes sense if you buy the newly-released HP D3600 external enclosure. You'd be able to move your 4TB disks into the external enclosure, run dual-domain (SAS multipath) to the SmartArray P822 RAID card, and keep the drives on the same backplane for consistent performance.

Other notes...

  • You shouldn't be using RAID5 if you add more disks to drive pool C. The HP Smart Array will warn you, and at a certain point (~6 drives), RAID5 on nearline disks is dangerous. You run the rish of unrecoverable read-errors. Consider RAID6 or RAID 1+0 when you make this transition.

  • Smart Array RAID controller metadata is housed on the disks, so groups of drives are portable, but you need to keep them in order.

  • Firmware is important. I'd suggest running updates on the hardware components before making any changes.

ewwhite
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