Adding a Dell MD1220

Last week was storage expansion week for me; my team and I added a Dell Powervault MD1220 to our existing SAN controlled by a MD3220i.

We got a full unit loaded with 24 x 900 GB 10krpm SAS, and I was shocked at how quickly it shipped to me. Thanks Dell!

 

The actual installation was incredibly easy, and we had the storage running within 10 minutes. The technical guidebook said that the MD3220i needed to be powered off to add the expansion, but based on the discussion here and the fact that the MD1220 was brand new and empty, I decided to do it live.

 

After connecting the SAS cables and turning on the power supplies, the MD1220 went through a startup check, and then by the time I got back to my computer with the MD Storage Manager software on it, it showed 19 TB of available space to be allocated.

 

From that point, it was as simple as creating a new disk group and virtual disks. I added that virtual disk to our host mapping group, and the storage was immediately visible to my Hyper-V cluster hosts through iSCSI; I didn’t have to re-do any iSCSI configuration.

 

I set up the new virtual disk as a Cluster Volume within the Hyper-V Cluster, and then downloaded a trial of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 to use for the storage migration of the VHD’s that need to go on this new cluster volume.

 

Once those migrations are done, I’ll remove one of the old cluster volumes, break up corresponding virtual disk within the MD Storage Manager software, and expand other virtual disks with those available hard drives. Hopefully I don’t find anything surprising while doing this; unfortunately this type of operation isn’t well documented from what I can find.

Does your vendor treat you well?

There’s a few projects I’m managing lately related to storage expansion and conversion to backup-to-disk (which I’ll hopefully post on in the future). Part of this process has been the acquisition of equipment and software.
The order was split between two vendors, and was quite large by our standards. Something unexpected happened that surprised me, and made me think about the client/vendor relationship my company has with others.

Part of the purchase was with CDW Canada, and our account rep added a not-insignificant gift item to the order. It was a really nice touch, and something that while not immediately practical, really puts CDW in a good light.

I spend much more money with other vendors over CDW for a variety of reasons, and yet none treat me as good as they do. None of my other vendors have such a consistent quality online ordering system, or stock checks, or shipping speed. None of my other vendors send me a big tin of Christmas cookies every year, like CDW does.

This isn’t to say I don’t appreciate my other vendors; I wouldn’t put money their way if that was the case. But it’s the little things like what CDW has or does that make it worthwhile for us to keep using them.

 

I could be off base here, and some may think that a vendor shouldn’t be required to woo with gifts and tokens. I disagree with that though; it’s a competitive marketplace, and those things (along with great customer service and support) go a long way in making the decision of where to spend my money easier.

How well does your vendor treat you? If they’re a primary one and you spend lots of money there, perhaps its time to talk to your account rep about what they can do for you; what advantages they provide over others.