Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Hi everybody! I'm at a technical college and we were recently donated a rack of SGI equipment. It seems that there's not much out there in the way of getting started with working on SGI hardware without licensed support, so I was hoping that there may be someone who could give me an idea of where to start.

I'm not sure if anyone here is familiar with SGI storage, or if there's somewhere that's more specialized in storage. If so, just give me a heads up.

We received a cabinet with 12 bays, 15 500GB drives each for a total of 180 drives. It looks like the bays are SGI InfinateStorage 4500. There are two bays that appear to be controllers as well. I took some photos, and have attached them to this post.

This isn't for profit or for an actual project, just an opportunity that I wanted to take advantage of. And if someone is really passionate and has some free time and located in central Texas, they are more than welcome to come check out what we have. Thanks in advance for any help!

Welcome to Nekochan! You've come to the right place!

Is the storage the only thing that you received? Did you also receive any workstations or servers? Did you receive any manuals?

SGI has very good online documentation at techpubs.sgi.com. To get started, you may want to check out this search result, which includes downloadable pdfs of the User's Guides for InfiniteStorage 4500 equipment -

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi ... ALL&rpt=20

Again, welcome, and feel free to ask more specific questions.

Start here:

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/manuals ... 43-001.pdf

Depending on the version, each of those drive enclosures takes SATA drives and the back end connects to fibrechannel, and can be used independently as a JBOD array (I was looking at buying one on the bay.) Connected into the controller, you have a full SAN. I don't know much about the controller, but the doc above should get you started.

(And when you decide you don't need that many racks, you can sell me one of the drive enclosures.

Geof

That's one seriously generous donation, who the heck did ya get it from, Daddy Warbucks?

I had actually already located the documentation and skimmed it. The main issue we're having is connecting to the controllers and utilizing them for managing the arrays. Is there any non-proprietary monitoring software that is set up for these arrays?

josehill wrote: Is the storage the only thing that you received? Did you also receive any workstations or servers? Did you receive any manuals?

We received quote a few Sun workstations and servers as well, but nothing else by SGI sadly. We also have other storage arrays such as an EMC2 cabinet and two NetApp cabinets from past donations. (The NetApps are the bane of my existence.)

ratfink wrote: Depending on the version, each of those drive enclosures takes SATA drives and the back end connects to fibrechannel, and can be used independently as a JBOD array (I was looking at buying one on the bay.) Connected into the controller, you have a full SAN. I don't know much about the controller, but the doc above should get you started.

(And when you decide you don't need that many racks, you can sell me one of the drive enclosures.

We're able to see the disks when we use fiberchannel from a server to a controller, but we're having difficulties managing the arrays through the controller. It looks like when using ethernet, the controllers like to speak IPv6, but we haven't gotten much farther.

I figure that if push comes to shove, I'll connect all of the controllers to a SilkWorm fiberchannel switch and then to a server, but I'd really love to utilize the hardware to the fullest.

vishnu wrote: That's one seriously generous donation, who the heck did ya get it from, Daddy Warbucks?

We actually get some pretty awesome industry donations. We're extremely thankful for generous companies who are interested in education. They help create a foundation for us to develop courses and labs on. It's an amazing experience. I've had hands-on experience with hardware that I would probably never be allowed to touch at an entry-level position.