Maxthon Chan's questions

I am building a 24-drive storage server using an existing 8-port SAS RAID controller and a chassis with passive backplanes, which means I need expanders. Currently I am using the HP 36-port expander but there is a compatibility problem, so I have to migrate to another solution.

The alternative is to use two Lenovo 24-port expanders (which I know to have no support issues,) each with a x4 link to the RAID controller and 12 drives hooked to it. I would also reserve one x4 link from each expander for future expansion. This leaves me one x4 link from each expander.

Now can I use a x4 cable to join the two expanders using those two remaining ports?

A website I frequent have finally decided to enable TLS to their servers, only not to mandate it as a lot of websites out there do. The maintainer claims that TLS must be optional. Why?

On my own website I have long set up mandated TLS and HSTS with long periods, and the weaker cipher suites are disabled. Plaintext access is guaranteed to be walled out with a HTTP 301 to the TLS-protected version. Does this affect my website negatively?

I have bought a used LSI iBBU07 for my LSI 3ware SAS 9750-8i RAID card. And now the card cannot detect the BBU even though I have seemingly installed it correctly.

I would like to know that:

1. Is there any hope to troubleshoot this BBU?
2. The BBU came with an IBM part number sticker attached on it. Does this indicate possible firmware incompatibilities between LSI 3ware, LSI and IBM RAID card and BBU firmwares? If so how can I, if I can, force reflash the BBU firmware with something that is compatible with 9750-8i?
3. The seller says that the battery on the BBU may be flat, and a BBU with flat battery may not be detected. If that is the case how can I force charge the battery? I have a generic Li-ion battery charger module with battery protection circuitry built in. Can I use that on the battery? If so how to wire the BBU to my charger module?
4. On a similar note, if the battery is really dead (as in no longer capable of holding a charge) can I replace just the Li-po cell with some spare Li-po cells I have in storage? If so how do I perform this operation? I have some mastery of the delicate art of soldering tiny electronic components.
5. If such troubleshooting steps are not available, is there any possibilities for me to recover the BBU, or do I have to write it up as a loss?

I am trying to migrate both the only vCSA and the VMKernel interface in my ESXi host from a standard vSwitch to a vDS, and that gave me all kinds of mess. How to do that properly? Bear in mind that the host in question also have the virtual machine that performs as the router.

My intended setup:

The host:

                     [      ]- vmnic0 -+- LACP --- Switch 1 (managed)
Internet --- vmnic3 -[ Host ]- vmnic1 -+
                     [      ]- vmnic2 --- Switch 2 (unmanaged)

vSwitch0:

vmnic3 --[ vSwitch0 ]-- vRouter

vDS:

vmnic0 -+- LAG1 --[     ]-- vRouter
vmnic1 -+         [ vDS ]-- vCSA
         vmnic2 --[     ]-- vmk0 (management network)

vRouter (OS: Ubuntu Linux):

vSwitch0 --[ vRouter ]-- vDS

vCSA (and other VMs):

vDS --[ vCSA ]

Other physical computers are attached on Switch1 or Switch2. There is also another ESXi host.

I was being stupid and when smoke testing my storage server I forgot to plug in the power of one of its drives (D'oh!) Now I am stuck in rebuilding the RAID-5 array. (Thank god it is RAID-5 or I could have lost a few TB worth of data)

How can I estimate the time it would take to rebuild the entire array?

More details about my setup:

• RAID card: LSI 3ware 9750-8i
• HDDs:
  • HGST HUA5C3030ALA640
  • WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0
  • WDC WD30EFRX-68EUZN0 (this one was unplugged and rebuilding)
• Rebuild priority is high (5).