RE: Accessing scsi based external storage

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us on behalf of Austin Godber
Sent: Mon 10/4/2004 10:41 AM
To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Re: Accessing scsi based external storage

Sanjay Darisi wrote:
>
> I have an over a Terabyte of external storage box that I have to access
> from a fedora core 1 box. Its connected to the host computer through a
> PCI based scsi adapter. This adapter has a scsi interface and the
> storage box is connected to it. This storage box has like 5 IDE drives.
> I don't know how to access these drives. FC1 loaded sym53c8xx module
> when i'm installing it on the host computer. I'm assuming this is for
> the scsi adapter that's in there. How do I access these drives from the
> host computer. How do I mount them? lspci -v shows the scsi adapter.
>
> The scsi adapter is LSI Logic - LSI U160
>
> And I don't know the company info of the storage adapter.
>
> But the system architecture of the storage box from its manual says:
>
>

>                                    Host
>                                     |
>                                     |  Ultra 160 or Fiber 2G
>                                     |
>                             Raid Subsystem controller board
>                                     |
>                                     |  ATA/133
>                                     |
>                              ATA/133 drives (Max 8)

>
> We don't have any RAID level configured and we have 5 IDE drives in
> there. Any ideas about how to access this storage box from FC1 linux box???
>
> Thank you,
> Sanjay.
>

You may be able to find some linux userspace utilities to manipulate the
RAID array, but most likely you will need to do it through the RAID
cards BIOS interface. You will probably see it talking during bootup
asking you to hit F11 or something to configure. You build your RAID in
there.

Once the array is created you should just see it like any scsi disk if
your driver is set up properly.

I should warn you though ... there may be a 1TB limit on block devices
in FC1. I ran into a 1TB limit in RHEL2.1. So, I just reconfigured the
array to use 4 disks in a RAID 5 with the 5th being a live failover disk.

Austin


--------

How do I know the limit on scsi devices in FC1?? Only when I try to access it or is there any info page describing the limit in FC1??

I don't see scsi card talking during bootup. But, I found out that there is a web based configuration page for hte storage box. The only RAID level that I can setup on that is 0, which goes upto 1250GB. If I set this up and FC1 has that limit of 1TB then I'm not in a good situation, do I? The manual of the storage box says it can support upto 2TB (8 bays) and I donno how, the maximum that I can see is with RAID 0 (i.e., 1.25TB). Does FC2 with 2.6 kernel has any limit like this on block devices??

Sanjay.