C210 M1/M2 LSI 1064E only seeing 4 of 5 drives

[todjohns]

I have several UCS C210 M1 and M2s, each has 5 x drives installed (72 gb).  I interrupt the boot process via cntrl-c to configure the LSI 1064E RAID controller but it's only showing 4 of the 5 installed drives.   I can see all 5 drives via the CIMC inventory option.

Why am I not able to see all 5 drives?

Also have one other question on IM RAID option.  I am setting up two RAID arrays each with 2 drives and want a hot spare for them as well.  Does each of them need it's own dedicated hot spare? or can 1 hot spare drive be available for both arrays?

Thanks,

Todd

[todjohns]

Apparently 4 drives is max that the LSI 1064E supports...

"LSI 1064E-based mezzanine card (Large Form Factor server only, PID R200-1120402W). This card provides RAID 0, 1, and 1E support for up to four SAS or SATA drives"

The above statement was pulled from this doc...

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/hw/C200M1/install/RAID.html#wp1014343

[Daniel Laden · Accepted solution]

You will want to review whether your C210 has a SAS Expander or SAS Extender.  These are daughter cards plugged in the back of the drive bay and receive the connection from the array controller.  By default, a C210 will have a SAS Extender.  The SAS Expander is an upgrade available at the time the C210 is ordered, it is not available as a field upgrade.

The SAS Extender can provide connectivity to 4 drives per SAS cable connected to it.  The 1064 only has support for one cable and is limited to 4 drives when used with the SAS Extender.  The 9261 has support for two cables and is limited to 8 drives.

The SAS Expander and support up to 16 drives with a single SAS connection.

HTH,

Dan Laden

[todjohns]

Thanks Dan, will get some eyes on the servers and see if they have either of the daughter cards you point out. I'm thinking that they don't since the drives are in bays 1 - 5 and I can only see 4 of them when in the LSI 1064e configuration utility.