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Asset ID: 1-71-1011575.1
Update Date:2010-07-28
Keywords:

Solution Type  Technical Instruction Sure

Solution  1011575.1 :   Verifying Proper Hardware RAID Volume Creation and OS Installation on Sun Fire™ V215/V245, Sun Fire™ V440/V445, and Sun Fire™ T1000/T2000  


Related Items
  • Sun Fire V245 Server
  •  
  • Sun Fire V440 Server
  •  
  • Sun Fire T2000 Server
  •  
  • Sun Fire V215 Server
  •  
  • Sun Fire V445 Server
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  • Sun Fire T1000 Server
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  • GCS>Sun Microsystems>Servers>CMT Servers
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  • GCS>Sun Microsystems>Servers>Entry-Level Servers
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PreviouslyPublishedAs
215884


Description
This document describes how to verify proper hardware RAID volume creation and OS installation procedures on Sun Fire V215/V245, Sun Fire V440, Sun Fire V445, and Sun Fire T1000/T2000



Steps to Follow
When creating a RAID volume the user may encounter different issues, that could be due to missing patches, incorrect command or unsupported configuration, volume not labeled properly, attempt to mirror boot drive with OS loaded, etc.

For more details and assistance on the supported methods of creating hardware RAID volumes, refer to the following documents:

  <Document: 1006930.1> RAID on the Sun Fire [TM] V215/245 Servers

  <Document: 1001991.1> Creating and Deleting HW Raid Mirrors on Sun Fire[TM] V440

  Creating a RAID volume on a Sun Fire[TM] T1000/T2000

  <Document: 1012950.1> Enabling Hardware RAID on Sun Fire[TM] T1000/T2000

Here are some of the main guidelines:

1) During a RAID volume creation, any disk that is part of the volume  looses  the last 64MB of it's disk capacity. This space is used by the LSI1064/1068 controller firmware to store the RAID configuration information (meta data). This will result in the loss of existing data.

2) It is essential for LSI1064/1068 to create RAID before installing any data to disk. When creating a RAID boot volume ensure that the volume is created and labeled with the format utility, prior to installing OS. If you try to create a RAID volume with a disk that already contains the OS image (boot disk), this would result in corrupting the filesystem and volume data.

For detailed steps refer to Configure and label a Hardware RAID Volume for use in the Solaris Operating System.  This link is for Sun Fire T2000, but you can find similar links in the server administration guides listed in the references.

3) When the RAID volume is corrupted and can't be deleted from OS (with 'raidctl'), the user can apply the procedure of deleting a volume via LSI/OBP commands (which are not officially supported).  Refer to the following infodocs:

 <Document: 1018063.1> Deleting mirrored volume on a Sun Fire[TM] V440 if OS is not yet installed

  <Document: 1018181.1> How to delete a RAID volume on Sun Fire[TM] V215/V245/T1000/T2000 at the OBP level

4) When a board that houses the RAID-controller is replaced, the new controller will have the existing RAID volumes inactive (disabled). Because of that, boot off the RAID volume is not possible, since OS will not detect the underlaying physical disks. To prevent loosing or corrupting the volume data, you must first enable the volumes, via OBP command "activate-volume". For guidelines refer to the following docs:

  <Document: 1009723.1> Unable to see a pre-existing RAID volume on Sun Fire[TM] T1000/T2000

  <Document: 1007005.1> How to activate a RAID volume on Sun Fire[TM] T1000/T2000, Sun Fire V215 & V245 Servers

Note: The volume migration (relocating RAID volume disk members from one system chassis to another) is NOT supported. The volume should be deleted before moving the drives to a different system and then recreated. See also <Document: 1009722.1>  Creating a RAID volume on a Sun Fire T1000/T2000.

References:

For more information and assistance with the RAID operations use the links to the product documentation:

 <Document: 1001991.1>  Creating and Deleting HW Raid Mirrors on Sun Fire[TM] V440

Sun Fire V215/V245 Server Administration Guide

Sun Fire V445 Server Administration Guide

Sun Fire T1000 Server Administration Guide

Sun Fire T2000 Server Administration Guide



Product
Sun Fire V440 Server
Sun Fire V445 Server
Sun Fire V245 Server
Sun Fire V215 Server
Sun Fire T2000 Server
Sun Fire T1000 Server

Internal Comments
This document contains normalized content and is managed by the the Domain Lead(s) of the respective domains. To notify content owners of a knowledge gap contained in this document, and/or prior to updating this document, please contact the domain engineers that are managing this document via the "Document Feedback" alias(es) listed below:

Normalization Lead: Jim Robbins Domain Engineer/Lead : Josh Freeman

VSP-SPARC-Normalization@sun.com

Note:

The
volume migration (relocating RAID volume disk members from one
system chassis to another) is


NOT

supported. This is
because the volume configuration data is stored in several places -
on the controller card in NVRAM and on the data area of drives that
are part of the volumes. The volume should be deleted  prior
to moving the drives to a different system and then
recreated.





Note:
If you try to
create a RAID volume with a disk that already contains the OS image
(boot disk), this would result in corrupting the filesystem and
volume data, see document 89622 in references.


REFERENCES:



Reference for RAID on Sun Fire V440


  <Document: 1009932.1>  (SunFire[TM] systems using LSI SAS
controller incur disk geometry remapping issues when existing OS on
a regular SAS/SATA disk is HW RAIDed) .


normalized, raid volume, lsi, boot, T1000, T2000, V215, V245, V440, V445, Problem Solved = RAID volume creation
Previously Published As
91382

Change History
Date: 2010-07-28
User name: Dencho Kojucharov
Action: reviewed/updated
Comments: Currency check, audited by Entry-Level SPARC Content Lead
Date: 2007-12-18
User Name: 7058
Action: Approved
Comment: Added
Normalization Lead: Jim Robbins
Domain Engineer/Lead : Josh Freeman
to internal section per Normalization checklist/guidelines.
Wrong asset identifier in 88088. Was 37 when it should have been 9.
Fixed.

All other links OK.
Normalization keyword present
OK to publish.
Version: 3
Date: 2007-12-17
User Name: 106061
Action: Approved
Comment: Hi Nita, Wendy,
This infodoc 91382 is a supporting doc for 91339 ans is already updated after a tech review.

Forwarding for your final review.

Thanks,
Dencho
Version: 0
Date: 2007-12-11
User Name: 35315
Action: Rejected
Comment: spoke to Dencho about updates
Version: 0


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