How to share a HP MSA500 between two HP DL380 G4 running ESXi3.5 U2?

[terence2]

At work, we just purchased a HP MSA500 and 2 DL380 G4s. ESXi3.5 U2 installed without any problem on the DL380s. However, I would like to share the MSA500 for a cheap failover, so during normal operation, esxi host#1 will power up vm#1-vm#4, and esxi host#2 will power up vm#5-vm#8. Here's what I did:

1. Since MSA500 has two SCSI commections, I connect one to host 'esxi-1' and another to host 'esxi-2'. Both using the embedded Smart Array 6i controller.

2. Booted up 'esxi-1' using HP SmartStart CD, and start Array Configuration Utility (ACU)

3. Create a logical drive (RAID5) with all available space on the array (~900Gb).

4. Turned on Selective Storage Presenataion (SSP) and enabled access for both hosts to the logical drive.

5. Restart and install ESXi3.5 U2 on both hosts.

After the installation, 'esxi-1' have no problem seeing the array and I can add it as a datastore. However, on 'esxi-2', I can see the array and available disk space under 'Configuration -> Storage Adapter', but when I try to add it as a datastore, it will try to format it (which I do not want it to), and if I proceed, it will end up with an error - 'Unable to create file system'.

My boss do not want to use the virtual iSCSI solution unless there is absolutely no other way. Does any of you have similar setup?

[rengler]

I'm pretty sure that way won't work as both hosts will be trying to use that storage as local storage, not shared storage. I'd recommend using the iSCSI method; works great for me.

Best,

Rob

[aremmes]

You only need to "add storage" once on one of the hosts. You've managed to get the logical disk to present to both hosts, so what I'd do then is to un-present the second host, reboot it, present the storage again to the second host, and then rescan the storage again through the VI Client, selecting both "scan for new storage devices" and "scan for new VMFS volumes".

[terence2]

aremmes,

Thank you for the reply. Here's what I did:

1. Add datastore on esxi-1 and format the logical drive as VMFS partition.

2. Reboot esxi-1 using HP SmartStart and configure the SSP to NOT present the logical drive to esxi-2

3. Boot up esxi-2

4. Re-enable SSP to present the logical drive to esxi-2

5. Exit HP Array Configuration Utility so the array can become available again.

6. Rescan storage on esxi-2 using VI client.

Only the internal storage of esxi-2 showed up. So I reboot esxi-2 again. And this time, the array showed up in the storage adapter. I then rescan the adapter with both options checked, but it still did not pick up the VMFS partition.

I then boot up esxi-1, and it still shows the datastore is available.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[esloof]

I used the MSA 500 for several years in production, you van even add a high availability module so you can connect 4 servers via direct SCSI. Works really great.