IBM Partner Pavilion DS4100 manual Fibre channel connections, Fibre channel loop configurations

Controller

Controller

Controller

Controller

Storage subsystems

Ethernet

Host computer

Fibre Channel

I/O path

Note: The client software is installed on one or more management systems, or on the host computer.

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Management station

Figure 24. Direct (out-of-band) managed storage subsystems

Fibre channel connections

The storage server fibre channel connection consists of up to four host fibre-channel loops and a redundant drive fibre-channel loop. The host fibre-channel loops provide the fibre path for host attachment. They can consist of fibre-channel cables, SFPs, host bus adapters, fibre-channel switches, and RAID controllers. The redundant drive fibre-channel loop provides the fibre path to the hard disk drives (HDDs). The redundant drive fibre-channel loop consists of fibre channel HDDs and optional storage expansion units, fibre-channel cables, and SFPs.

Exception: The DS4100 single-controller storage server does not support drive loops or expansion units.

The DS4100 base storage server supports redundant disk-drive-loop configurations. Each RAID controller has three SFP ports. These SFP ports are labeled Host 1, Host 2, and Expansion. You can build a redundant drive loop by connecting one or more expansion units to the redundant RAID controllers. Then, use dual fiber-optic cables to connect one expansion unit to another in a daisy-chain. For more information about adding expansion units, see “Connecting expansion units (base storage server only)” on page 57.

Fibre channel loop configurations

You must determine how the host systems will connect to the storage server. You can connect up to two host systems directly to the storage server, or you can

36IBM TotalStorage DS4100 Storage Server: Installation, User’s, and Maintenance Guide