I have two used HP EVA 8000 AD524B drive enclosures with 14 146gb drives in each. They have 2 Fibre controllers in each. I would like to connect these two units to an HP Proliant DL380 G4 server running Windows Server 2008 and create 1 (or 2) big drive.
I understand I need a FC HBA (card) in the machine and the cables to connect from the card to the units.
However, I am hoping Windows can then recognize the drive(s)/unit(s) and create drives without special HP software (without using HP's Command View EVA). I understand the HP software has many benefits such as multi-path, but at this point I simply want to connect the units as direct attached type storage in windows.
I believe this is the reference manual.
More info here.
UPDATE:
I was able to get a q-logic hba and connect an LC-LC fibre cable from the HP EVA to the q-logic card. My Windows Server 2008 R2 machine is now able to see all 14 of the drives! However, this is of course not a raid configuration. So I am wondering: - If I create a raid 5 volume in windows disk manager, is that considered a hardware raid and if so, do you see any issues with doing that? - Is there some way I can create a raid 5 volume in the HP EVA unit without having to purchase the HP EVA software (or is there an older version or a demo that would let me at least initially set it up)? -- update: I was able to download the HP EVA software as a demo (see comment below).