nStor NexStor 4000S Series User manual

USER'S GUIDE
NexStor® 4000S & 4100S Series
STORAGE SYSTEMS
4000S.book Page 1 Friday, November 14, 2003 3:10 PM

4000S.book Page 2 Friday, November 14, 2003 3:10 PM

USER'S GUIDE
NexStor® 4000S & 4100S Series
STORAGE SYSTEMS
4000S.book Page 1 Friday, November 14, 2003 3:10 PM

nStor Corporation, Inc.
Restricted Rights and Liability
No part of this manual may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, in whole or part, without prior written permission from
nStor Corporation, Inc.
nStor Corporation, Inc. shall not be liable for any damages or for the loss of any information resulting from the
performance or use of the information contained herein. Your rights to the software are governed by the license
agreement included with any accompanying software. nStor Corporation reserves the right to periodically revise
this manual without notice. Product features and specifications described are subject to change without notice.
For Regulatory information, see Appendix C.
Copyright
nStor
Corporation
, Inc.
6190 Corte Del Cedro Road
Carlsbad, CA 92009
Copyright © 2003 nStor Corporation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
nStor, AdminiStor, StorView, NexStor, the NexStor logo, the StorView logo, and the nStor logo are trademarks or
registered trademarks of nStor Corporation, Inc.
Other company and product names herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective
companies.
Agency Notes
WARNING: Drives and controller/adapter cards described in this manual should only be installed in UL-listed and CSA
certified computers that give specific instructions on the installation and removal of accessory cards (refer to your
computer installation manual for proper instructions).
ATTENTION: Les lecteurs et cartes contrôleurs décrits ici ne doivent être montés que sur des ordinateurs homologués (UL et
CSA) et livrés avec des manuels contenant les instructions d’installation et de retrait des accessoires. Reportez-
vous au manuel d’installation de votre ordinateur.
SERVICE NOTE: Remove the power cables prior to servicing this equipment.
!
4000S.book Page 2 Friday, November 14, 2003 3:10 PM

i
Contents
About this Manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
At a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Front Bezel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Power System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Standard AC Hot Swappable Power Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Optional DC Hot Swappable Power Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Cooling Fan Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
SAF-TE Disk I/O Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
SCSI SAF-TE Cluster Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Spin-Up Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Host SCSI I/O Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Single Bus Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
RAID Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
RS-232 Service Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Control and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Status Indicator LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Power-On LED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Channel Status LED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Power Supply Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Fan Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Drive LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Audible Alarm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 Theory of Controller Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Operating Modes Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Stand-Alone Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Active-Active Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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Table of Contents
ii
Active-Passive Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Understanding Mirrored Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
A Word about Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Minimizing Downtime for Maximum Data Availability . . . . . . . . 32
How Available are Clusters? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Application of Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3 Setup and Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Storage System Detailed Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Installing the Storage System Enclosure into the Rack Cabinet . . 36
Installing the Storage System into the Tower Stand . . . . . . . . . . 39
Completing the Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Cabling the DC Power Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Before You Continue... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Special Note for Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 Installations . . . . 45
Operating Mode Configuration and Cabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
JBOD - 12 Drive Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
JBOD - 24 Drive Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
RAID - 12 Drive Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
RAID - 24 Drive Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
RAID - 36 Drive Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Topology Host Cabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Stand-Alone Single Port:Host Cabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Stand-Alone Dual Port:Host Cabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Active-Active Single Port:Host Cabling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Active-Passive Dual Port:Host Cabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Single Bus Clustering Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Upgrades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Powering On the Storage System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Powering Off the Storage System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4 Accessing the RAID Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Accessing the Disk Array Administrator Software/VT-100 . . . . . . 82
Menu System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Updating RAID Controller Firmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5 Monitoring Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Enclosure Component Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Status Indicator LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Power-On LED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
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Table of Contents
iii
Channel Status LED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Power Supply Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Fan Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Drive LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Drive Status LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Drive Activity LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Audible Alarm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
LED Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
One-Touch Annunciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Enclosure SAF-TE Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Uploading SAF-TE Disk I/O & SCSI SAF-TE Cluster Card Firmware 101
Enclosure Fan Speed Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
SAFTE Commands Debug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
General Enclosure Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Common SCSI Bus Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Terminal Emulator and COM Port Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Host SCSI Channel Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Device SCSI Channel Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Problems During Bootup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Controller Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Common Problems and Interpreting the LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Warning and Error Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Disk Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Disk Channel Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7 Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Removing the Front Bezel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Replacing the Cooling Fans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Replacing an AC Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Replacing a DC Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Replacing a Disk Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Replacing the SAF-TE Disk I/O or SCSI SAF-TE Clustering Card . . 133
Replacing the Host SCSI I/O Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Replacing a RAID Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Replacing a “Killed” Controller When in Active-Active/Active-
Passive Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Replacing the Enclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
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Table of Contents
iv
A Technical Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
B Port Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
VHD/CI SCSI Connectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
SAF-TE Service Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
RAID Controller Service Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Null-Modem Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
DC Power Supply Connector Pinout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
C Regulatory Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Compliance Information Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
FCC Class A Radio Frequency Interference Statement . . . . . . . . . 154
Class A Taiwanese Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Class A Japanese Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
CE Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Power Cord Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4000S.book Page iv Friday, November 14, 2003 3:10 PM

v
Preface
About this Manual
Welcome
Congratulations on the purchase of your new NexStor 4000S/4100S Series JBOD
and RAID Storage System from nStor Corporation. The NexStor 4000S/4100S
Series is a very high-performance fully fault-tolerant Ultra320/160 SCSI storage
system. It’s unique 2U design is optimized to fit in the compact space of today’s
data center rack enclosures and as a deskside tower system.
At its core is the NexStor 4000S Ultra320/160 SCSI JBOD storage enclosure which
supports up to twelve hot pluggable 1-inch high Ultra320 or Ultra160 disk drives all
in a 2U (3.47-inch) form factor enclosure. Full component redundancy is provided
through hot pluggable cooling fan module and independent power supplies. RAID
functionality is provided through an embedded Ultra160-to-Ultra160 SCSI RAID
Controller. The NexStor 4100S is available in two model configurations, either as a
single controller configuration designed for Stand-Alone topologies, or dual
controllers configuration for Active-Active or Active-Passive topologies.
Product Identification
Storage Enclosure Number of Controllers Model of Controller
NexStor 4000S
0 JBOD
NexStor 4110S
1 NexStor-Chaparral JSS122
NexStor 4120S
2 NexStor-Chaparral JSS122
4000S.book Page v Friday, November 14, 2003 3:10 PM

About this Manual
Features
vi
This user’s guide is your complete documentation to set up the storage system
hardware, add components, cable the storage system components, replace parts,
and diagnose/repair your system.
For information on the software control, management and configuration, refer to
one of the following: VT-100 Software Guide or the AdminiStor Software Guide.
Features
The NexStor 4000S/4100S Series Storage Systems are designed for mission critical
applications requiring the highest performance with uncompromised data
reliability, such as mid-range and enterprise server storage. They maintain
exceptionally high throughput and are ideally suited for high bandwidth data
intensive applications, such as electronic commerce, digital video, CAD, seismic
research, digital pre-press, and 3-D imaging.
The following are major features of the NexStor 4000S/4100S Series Storage
Systems:
■
Ultra320/160 storage system enclosure.
■ Ultra160-to-Ultra160 SCSI RAID Controller.
■
Supports up to 12 drives in JBOD mode and 36 drives in RAID
configurations.
■
A standard AC power supply with an option for a redundant second power
supply.
■
Optional DC power supply with an option for a redundant second power
supply.
■ Designed to fit standard 19-inch rack enclosures or a deskside tower.
■ Front panel LEDs provide notifications of system component status, and
logical and physical drive status.
■
Sequential data transfers from disk arrays at over 320 MB per second
sustained in JBOD mode and 160 MB per second with the RAID Controller
option installed.
■ Greater than 18,000 IOPs capability from a single controller.
■
Active-Active failover with dual hot-pluggable controllers.
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