Add HDD ML350p g8 RAID10

[raymoreton]

Hi all,

We have an ml350p G8 with 4x sas drives in a raid 10 config, it has a p420i card and its running 2012 essentials and I am looking to expand the array, I have a couple of questions first though.

Firstly, if I want to add them to the existing array how do i go about this without causing damage.

Secondly, they may want to add these drives as a seperate array and use bitlocker to make them secure area, this is a requirement from one of their customers.

Thanks

[scharchouf]

to add HDD to Array, you can use ACU Array configuration utility you need FBWC installed on P420i

Here QuicSpecs :

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/14228_div/14228_div.pdf

Once you add the HDDs to array you can enable Bitlocker to that array

[raymoreton]

Ok thanks for that, it has 512 of write cache, what difference does it make having and not having the cache ?

If I want to expand the existing array is that possible or do I have to add the new drives as a seperate array ?

[scharchouf]

without the cache, there is some option that you can not do, such as the activation of RAID 5 or RAID 50 requires a minimum of 512M. you can not increase the size of a logical drive.

more cache must also have a battery. In the event of a server or power failure, the data that is in the write cache at the time of the failure could be lost, resulting in possible data corruption. To avoid possible data loss or corruption, we recommend using flash backed write cache (FBWC). FBWC uses onboard power from a capacitor to write the cached data to non-volatile flash memory where it can remain almost indefinitely. FBWC maintains write cache integrity even in the event of a server or power failure.

Smart Array controllers use cache to improve the overall performance of drive arrays for both read and write operations. You can use the HP Array Configuration Utility (ACU) to configure the percentage of the cache to use for read caching and write caching.

I will communicate this PDF file that will give you more details on the map controllers and their functions:

HP Smart Array Controllers for HP ProLiant Servers