MSA20 drives support!!!

[#1]

Hi all
I'm in desperate need of more space, and as of right now, I have 12 X 750G drives with the MSA20, wondering if the controller would support 12 X 1.5T drives.
Thanks

[#2]

From Quickspecs
JYP

At A Glance
Support for the Smart Array 6404, Smart Array 6402, Smart Array 642 and the Smart Array 6i Controllers
Supports HP SATA 3G disk drives, with capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB, 750 GB and 1 TB - 1 year warranty
Total storage capacity of 12TB (with 12 HP SATA 3G 1TB hard drives)
Ultra320 SCSI host connectivity
Boot from storage - move all disks to external storage for best capacity utilization
Redundant hot-plug power supplies and fans standard
3 year limited warranty (MSA20 enclosure only)
Pre-failure warranty that covers SATA disk drives (See note below)
NOTE: Customer must be running Insight Manager in order to get Pre-failure warranty. It is only covered for the warranty period of the drive which is 1 year for SATA drives.
NOTE: When using 750 GB or higher SATA HDD behind a MSA1500 or a MSA1510i, the maximum capacity available is 64 TB, maximum available storage capacity depends on the RAID level being implemented, and is based on maximum number of LUNs (32) and maximum LUN size (2 TB). Support for 750 GB or 1 TB SATA requires minimum firmware V 5.20 on MSA1500 and V1.32 on MSA1510i and V2.02 on MSA20.
NOTE: 3G SATA drives will only function as 1.5G drives in a MSA20

[#3]

Yes there is support for 1.5TB drives.

Mine has 11X 1.5TB Drives, going to 12 today.

Just remember the 2TB lun limit size..

I originally was using the unit as 2 X Raid 5 array, but had a few problems extending the arrays after upgrading the drives(the first drives were 300 GB, then 500, then 650 then 1TB etc, so they were extended several times..)

So I went for 6 X mirrored drives.

Want more space for my music, so now upgrading to 4 X raid 5 (as I write)

Need to use dynamic disks (server 2008) to get reasonable drive space... (I guess that will stuff up my reliability)

So if you are lucky, start replacing the 750's with 1.5TB (I use Seagate Barracuda Gen 11 - not the enterprise EN Version - but have used them in the past) They do not appear to be firmware specific,

Then try a drive expansion, but back up your data first, and don't be surprised if you have to blow away your raid config and do it again.

Martin

[#4]

I have the same request for my MSA20 too!

There are 1.5TB and 2TB disks available ready in the market, It will be nice if the controller would support 12 x 2TB (JBOD).

From the Quickspec, HP doesn't say anything about 1.5TB or 2TB. My MSA20 is running on firmware v2.08, will the large capacity disks work out-of-the-box without any firmware updates?

Lastly, it is not necessary to get "enterprise" class SATA disks for the MSA20, right?

[#5]

what is controller type for your MSA20 ?
JYP

[#6]

my MSA20 is connected to a DL380 G4 storage server, with a built in SmartArray 6i controller (64MB cache).

I'm not going creating any fault-tolerant RAID arrays, i just need the maximum disk space.

[#7]

as said previously there are a know limitation of 2TB by lun on 6i so adding 2TB disks do not give you more fexibility even
created more luns
JYP

[#8]

I understand the LUN size limitation. All I wanted to know is whether the 1.5TB and 2TB disks are compatible to the MSA20 controller.

If the disks will work, I can do:
- 12 of 1 x 2TB (JBOD - 24TB useable)
- 6 of 2 x 1TB (RAID1 - 12TB useable)

If I need maximum space, I can configure as in the 1st plan. Else, I can sacrifice 50% for fault tolerance.

[#9]

typo:

6 of 2 x 2TB (RAID1 - 12TB useable)

[#10]

even if working this is not a supported configuration so keep in mind if you loose datas
JYP

[#11]

To you guys that have the MSA 20 running with 1.5's and 2 TBs...

Can you guys share what firmware you're running? Any problems upgrading that I should look out for?

I am running an HP MSA20 connected to a host (HP ProLiant DL360 G4p) machine via SCSI interface and HP Smart Array 6404/256 controller

I have yet to upgrade the firmware but I really need to expand to 2 TB's and I'll be flying to LA to do it. Wanted to be sure it'll take the 2 TB's.

Thanks in advance!

[#12]

It's clear that there are some people using 1.5TB drives in MSA20s with success, but can anyone confirm they have been able to use 2TB disks? (or confirm that it doesn't work if that's the case).

[#13]

I see that this is an old post, but I am about to order 2TB drives for our two MSA20s. Is there confirmation on whether the MSA20s will take them? Also, if the MSA20 will take 2TB drives is it then safe to assume (...) that the MSA30s will take 2TB drives as well?

Thanks

[#14]

The MSA30 is a parallel-SCSI disk drive enclosure without any embedded RAID controller.

As far as I know, no 2 TeraByte parallel-SCSI disk drives do exist - and won't as the market has gone to SAS.

[#15]

Just happened to read this post with intention to plug in a Hitachi 2TB SATA drive to a MSA1500/MSA20/60 combo. 2.0TB SATA drive is present in the ACU and is now RAID'able!.  BTW~ I am stoked!

Supportable?!?..... who knows as of today, but worth the risk for this (my) instance.

Unassigned Drives  2000.3 GB SATA Logical Drive at Box 7 : Bay 11

Controller Status OK Controller MSA1000 Controller Serial Number XXXXXXXXXXX Bus Interface Fibre Channel Chassis Slot 1 RAID 6 (ADG) Status Enabled Firmware Version 7.00 Number of Ports 4 Redundant State Active Redundancy Status OK

[#16]

so here is it a few months later and I'm in the same boat.

But now there exists 1, 1.5, 2 and even 3 tb drives.

Has any one tried the 2 and 3 tb drives with any success?

my future config   msa20 connected to a sa 6404 512 cache 64 bit linux

I was thinking 4 to 6 drives in a a raid adg (raid 6) for ea logical drive

additionally, would switching from a single to a dual interface buy us anything?

[#17]

Hello, we have a MSA20 with 12 x 2TB HDD's in it and is working fine.

We have also installed a SA 6402 PCI-X card into a DL180 G6 Server so we can now get rid of our DL380 G4. Getting the PCI-X riser is difficult though as HP stopped making them...