When working with hardware, whether it’s for the consumer or business segments, it doesn’t matter; it’s hard to imagine something that evokes as much “love and adoration” for the manufacturer as “white lists” of compatible equipment and consumables.
Everything seems to be fine: there are no obstacles to the operation of the device, but when connecting we get something like “your device is not supported, I don’t want to work with it,” or even proud silence and the absence of signs of life.
At such a moment, you feel special tenderness towards the manufacturer and say a lot of kind words.
It’s much more fun to stumble upon such a message where you wouldn’t expect to see it. It seems like an ordinary situation: a disk crashed from a raid. Replaced with the same one, the array should be rebuilt and continue working. No such luck!
It happens that the raid has been rebuilt, but the server continues to light up red, and the “degraded” status has not gone away. I've encountered this problem quite often lately.
So. We have an eighth generation HP server. DL360, 380, also available on BL460c blades. Raid controller, respectively, Smart Array P420, P222, P820 and others like them. There is a disk. And there is the situation described above.
This is what it looks like on the screen:
And here it is on the server:
Here, on the top disk, there is a looping circular indication and, when assembling the array, it is not marked in blue.
The server is illuminated with a red LED, there is an error in ILO, the status is “degraded”:
And it degraded, of course, by the hundreds:
In the logs:
If we go into SSA and look at the disk, we will see another confirmation.
It's funny, because both discs are original. The hologram is clearly visible here:
What's the matter? The answer is simple: in the skid.
Since the eighth generation, Hewlet decided that a sled is not just a piece of plastic and metal with light guides, but a complex technical solution.
Actually, the original skid is on only one disk. The Chinese work according to the great random scheme: out of ten, five may turn out to be normal.
It turns out that it is not HP that is to blame, but the Chinese, and all the kind words went to the wrong address.
Here the difference between the behavior of the Chinese and the original is clearly visible: the same, non-stop, circular display.
How to identify a Chinese “replica”? I will show you now.
This is the box it usually comes in.
Further, in all photos, the top is a replica, the bottom is the original.
1. It is clearly visible that the color of the plastic is different. The original will be lighter.
The presence or absence of a sticker indicating the disc model may be an additional feature, but not a guarantee. There is a high probability that there will be no sticker on the replica.
2. Markings on the left side. The original, in addition to the part number, has the hp logo stamped on it.
3. The contact board is also different. The Chinese have yellow, the original has orange, almost brown. Plus, the original has markings.
4. Inside, on the same left side of the original, the part number is stamped:
5. The color of the metal on the right side is different, the Chinese one is more saturated:
Be carefull.
The moral of the story is: not all sleds are created equal. Plus, to all this fun, the replicas often fit quite tightly into their seats. To such an extent that it is simply impossible to remove the disk without damaging the slide.
Therefore, at the WestComp company - where I work - it was decided to abandon the use of Chinese skids, since they began to create a lot of problems.
Source: habr.com