HP StorageWorks 9100 Extreme Data Storage System administration guide V1.0.2 (AN540-96018, February 2010)

3 HP ExDS9100 concepts
This section discusses HP ExDS9100 concepts. For information about specific HP ExDS9100 commands,
see the chapter where the command is discussed.
Server blades
Server blades are numbered according to their bay number in the blade enclosure. Server 1 is in bay
1 in the blade enclosure, and so on. Server blades must be contiguous; empty blade bays are not
allowed between server blades. Only HP ExDS9100 server blades can be inserted in a blade enclosure.
The HP ExDS9100 monitors the status of servers in various ways.
Storage blocks
A storage block comprises an HP ExDS9100c chassis containing 12 disk drives and an HP
ExDS9100cx JBOD enclosure containing 70 disk drives. The HP ExDS9100cx enclosure actually
contains two JBODs—one in each pull-out drawer (left and right drawer). Each drawer contains 35
disk drives.
The whole storage block unit is identified in the HP ExDS9100 system as an “array.” An array is
assigned a unique array number, and can also identified by its serial number. The serial number is
the serial number of the HP ExDS9100c chassis. Every server is connected to every array using a
SAS fabric. The following elements exist:
• Each server has a P700m SAS host bus adapter (HBA) which has two serial attached SCSI (SAS)
ports.
• Each SAS port is connected by the server blade enclosure backplane to a SAS switch. There are
two SAS switches such that each server is connected by a redundant SAS fabric.
• Each array has two redundant controllers. Each of the controllers is connected to each SAS switch.
The exdsmgr show array <number> command shows the firmware and serial number of both of
these components. Because the HP ExDS9100cx has two drawers, there are two components containing
firmware.
Within an array, the disk drives are assigned to different “boxes,” where box 1 is the HP ExDS9100c
enclosure and boxes 2 and 3 are the left and right pull-out drawers, respectively. See Figure 11.
9100 Extreme Data Storage System administration guide 25