Fix: My annoying Boot from San Issue with BL45p Blade (Update)

My company recently bought 3 "new" HP blades - a nice addition for existing HP p-Class chassis. Why new in quotes - since technically the models are no longer current in HP model line, and they had to be bought from external vendor we don't usually use - but all purposes they are new for us.

BL20p G3 were pretty easy to setup as boot from out NetApp 3020 SAN, but the bl45p G1 was stubborn as an donkey.

There problem was during POST the Qlogic HBA didn't recognized the LUN and therefore , skipped on loading the HBA's bios = No boot.
However in Qlogic config utility (the CTRL-Q) I had all settings done correctly and the fiber scan shows the LUN correctly.

It took me 5 days of troubleshooting, trying different configs and getting ideas and opinions from colleagues and experts friends.

Nothing Helped! ;-(

Until a colleague given me an idea - to connect the same fiber/lun to different blade and only one as free was bl25 - despite totally different hardware (AMD vs Intel - BSOD pretty much guaranteed) it was still important test to see if its the fabric/lun/config issue. BL25 booted from lun perfectly every time (as well as BSOD every time as well)

A total surprise to me was a solution which I got from 2nd level supporter at HP after convincing them I need to escalate the issue and It's not 3rd party problem -

CLEAR BIOS TO DEFAULT SETTINGS !

It looks like part of Cmos settings got corrupted, but there was no indication in bios for that....

Update: Looks like after all it was problem with bad fiber…. :(

 

Technorati Tags: HP,Qlogic,Fiber,Blade,Netapp,P-Class,SAN

Baltimore becomes the first Xohm WiMAX (4G) City

Sprint's Xohm WiMAX service begins this morning in Baltimore, Maryland. Customers will be able to pay for daily or monthly access to the 4G wireless service without long-term contracts or usage caps.

The expected average downlink speed for the service will be 2-4 Mbps and will cost either $10 per 24-hour block of time or $35 per month for home access and $45 per month for "on-the-go." Sprint also offers multi-device packages in anticipation of future hardware availability.

The current Xohm hardware is currently limited to the desktop modem by Zyxel for $79.99, and the expresscard modem by Samsung for $59.99. A USB XOHM modem made by ZTE is listed but not yet available.

By not requiring a contract, Sprint is encouraging non-customers to test the service out to see for themselves. For a service that has thus far been difficult to establish, a strong public reaction is needed if it is to progress.

Source

I have my own reservation about this - One one hand $15 Reduced prices for 6 months and no need for contract might help save up to $90 to price conscious Wireless internet users, but in long run prices being about same as 3G data service and about same speeds, Sprint will have a hard time for next year or so, until Intel will really start the push to include WiMax adapter in every "Centrino 3" laptop , just like they did with first generation with Wi-Fi - The "No WiFi - No Centrino Label" Policy, and Inside sources tell it'll comparable or bigger push than original platform.

Technorati Tags: Wimax,Xohm,Clearwire,Clear,Sprint,Wireless

How to Eject BOTH Magazines from Quantum Superloader 3 Tape Autoloader/Library

This time around drive inside out above mention tape library broke down and after extensive troubleshooting with, somehow I felt very reluctant, Quantum support people (with heavy south-east Asia accents) they finally agreed to send an onsite engineer to fix it. How silly is was from me to assume this qualified service engineer is going to fix anything or perform onsite drive replacement. As it turns out that the tape drive in this model of autoloader - 3, CAN NOT be field replaced and a Quantum solution is to ship WHOLE NEW LIBRARY. Bear with me - this unit is 2U Full Length sized, holding up to 16 LTO (1/2" sized) tapes.

Now to the juicy part:
The library in its normal operation allows only one of two it's tape magazines to be ejected at the same time, however, the new unit came without magazines so we need to change between them. Reading documentation revealed nothing but a short mention of the mysterious "manual" removal procedure, but no mention of exactly that needs to be done. Short phone to support lifted the mystery: A very special tool required for a job - stainless steel ruler! Or in lack of one I successfully used a diner/bread knife. The trick is to insert into the lower part of the slot between magazine and mailslot (Look on the image below) for about 3" deep until you hear a quiet click and you'd be able to release 2nd magazine.
I strongly suggest you fully power down the autoloader before performing this operation.

AT&T flips the switch on iphone wireless data network

AT&T Inc.'s wireless data network was down Wednesday morning in parts of the eastern U.S., according to user reports and the company.

AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said access was restored just before noon Eastern time, but he could not describe the extent of the outage.
Users on various online forums reported outages in Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois and Missouri.

The outage affected Web surfing and email. Most of the outage reports came from iPhone users. Voice calls, text messaging and BlackBerry email access still worked, Coe said.

Source

Technorati Tags: AT&T,iPhone,Wireless,Email,Blackberry

How to buy New Hard drive on the Cheap

Let me guess - the 250Gb Hard disk which came with PC you bought a year or two ago seemed so large - capacity to hold over 35000 Mp3 (at 160kbps) - Simply mind boggling , but Hi Def changed the rules of the game again - single 1.5h movie from highly compressed 4.7gb to 28Gb original copy. Iphone and Ipod touch now became more and more popular and with ability to comfortable watch movies and shows on the road needs all the hard drive space it can get.

In short - my current 250+320 drives aren't simply cut to the task anymore.

In our day and age where Price/Gig of Dual Layer+R DVD is about 50c where Hard drive is as low as 13c 9c !!! Care to guess which one I prefer :
The flaky optical media easily damaged by scratches, corrosion, over-pressure and simply time factor OR high speed of both read and write, extremely high number of re-writes etc...

Since yesterday I got the great news about Newegg stopped collecting taxes in my state, I happily decided to come back and check new deals, among other things I made a small table of Sata2 7200Rpm 3.5" Hard drives, sorted by Price per gig and got some interesting results.
Below are top 5 of the cheapest driver (per gig)

Name	Price	Capacity	Price of 1gb
$84.99 - SAMSUNG HD642JJ 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (Bare Drive) - Retail	$84.99	640	0.132796875
$84.99 - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM	$84.99	640	0.132796875
$84.99 - Seagate ST3640323AS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM	$84.99	640	0.132796875
$69.99 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM	$69.99	500	0.13998
$69.99 - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD502lJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM	$69.99	500	0.13998

My surprise was to find this:

$38.99 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST380815AS 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$38.99

80

0.487375

Wow! I guess it's platters age made of gold or platinum :) Hurry up before those deal expire.

(p.s: I have no affiliations with Newegg)

Related:
New Low Reached in hard drive Prices

Technorati Tags: Hard Drive,Value,NewEgg,Cheap,Price