topic Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10 in ProLiant Servers - Netservers

Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

MarcSeguin — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 15:54:12 GMT

Hello,

I aim to use the SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 in an HP MicroServer GEN10. Unfortunatly I didn't find a way to get the configuration tools loaded.

- HPE SSA for Windows cannot work as there is no Windows installed yet (logical w/o a valid RAID configuration)

- HPE SSA Offline does not boot in UEFI mode (ssaoffline-3.10-3.0.iso and most recent version ssaoffline-3.25-4.0.iso)

- HPEs UEFI System Utilities (To be launched with F9 during POST) seem not to be available on the HP MicroServer GEN10

- HPE SSP hangs after launching the firmware upgrade.

Any ideas how to solve the issue?

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

JAC2 — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 19:09:07 GMT

Hi Marc,

On page 65 of the MicroServer user guide (https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c05355808), there are instructions on how to access the configuration tool (Smart Storage Administrator) for the Smart Array controller. This tool can be accessed online or offline. Go to the guide for information on how to access the tool.. Hope this is what you were looking for.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

megwynne — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 19:36:21 GMT

Hello MarcSeguin:

Please take a look at https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=a00016372en_us to see if that helps to answer some of your UEFI questions.

The troubleshooting guide contains information about updating your firmware: https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c05357220

That UEFI document, the troubleshooting guide, and other useful documents are available at the HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Enterprise Information Library:

http://www.hpe.com/info/microservergen10-docs

Regards,

Mary Gwynne

HPE Employee

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

MarcSeguin — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 20:33:54 GMT

Hello Jac,

on page 65 the document refers to the internal marvell mass storage controller but I need to use the SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10. According to the Server specs this controller is supported but until now I was not able to use it properly :-(

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

MarcSeguin — Thu, 03 May 2018 07:42:48 GMT

in between we were able to boot the most recent Server Service Pack and configure the RAID on the SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 but it was necessary to change the BIOS to legacy mode :-(

Then, as Windows Server 2016, 64 bit supports only UEFI boot, we changed back to UEFI and bootet the Windows Setup, loaded the driver for the SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 but no drive is shown anymore.

Are there any suggestions to this issue?

Marc

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

Jimmy Vance — Thu, 03 May 2018 11:51:49 GMT

@MarcSeguin wrote:
Hello,
I aim to use the SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 in an HP MicroServer GEN10. Unfortunatly I didn't find a way to get the configuration tools loaded.
- HPE SSA Offline does not boot in UEFI mode (ssaoffline-3.10-3.0.iso and most recent version ssaoffline-3.25-4.0.iso)

The ISO image does contain the proper directory structure to boot UEFI, did you use the included USB Key utility to create a bootable USB drive?

- HPEs UEFI System Utilities (To be launched with F9 during POST) seem not to be available on the HP MicroServer GEN10

The MicroServer Gen10 does not have iLO or the underlying hardware to support the embedded HPE system utilites.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Sat, 16 Jun 2018 01:07:59 GMT

This card is a nightmare. I saw mine in UEFI and configured the RAID. After powering of the server and fully removing power (disconnecting) I never saw it anywhere again. You are lucky that your card still works - at least somehow...

Have you checked this out already? https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?sp4ts.oid=1009955119&swItemId=MTX_25c415675fe646918e7ce64491&swEnvOid=4184#tab5 Hopefully helps you.

@HPE: Any idea, why I don't see the card anymore?!?

LED3 indicates that the controller is in good health: https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=null&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-a00026452en_us The controller is still on version 1.04. Server firmware on ZA10A350.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 22:15:31 GMT

I sent back the controller and got a new one. The new one stopped working as well. At least I found out the problem: don't change Power Mode to Balanced. After I had changed it to Balanced the MicroServer didn't recognize the controller anymore. It's a joke that this bunch of crap is sold as "Enterprise" stuff.

I'm on BIOS Version ZA10A350 for the server and 1.34-0 for the controller.

Also note: you need the Service Pack for ProLiant 2018.06.0 for configuring the controller on BIOS ZA10A350.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 23:00:32 GMT

@MarcSeguin wrote:
in between we were able to boot the most recent Server Service Pack and configure the RAID on the SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 but it was necessary to change the BIOS to legacy mode :-(

I can confirm this. The Service Pack is only usable with legacy boot. It does boot in UEFI mode but the display stays blank.

Then, as Windows Server 2016, 64 bit supports only UEFI boot, we changed back to UEFI and bootet the Windows Setup, loaded the driver for the SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 but no drive is shown anymore.

Grats to you. I haven't come so far yet. I'll give it a last shot with another replacement. However I doubt that I get it to work and that it runs properly.

What I noticed was that the controller was realized in UEFI mode. I saw it in BIOS, though I couldn't configure it in BIOS with firmware version ZA10A350. A prior version worked. Unfortunately I didn't note the version... Using UEFI in firmware ZA10A350, the configuration options are there but selecting any of them get me back to the inital screen.

Are there any suggestions to this issue?

Do you see the controller in UEFI?

Marc

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 23:34:14 GMT

That thing is finally running with RHEL. I'm using UEFI boot. HPE Smart Array E208i-p SR Gen10 Firmware is on 1.60. Server on ZA10A360.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

sugita01 — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 21:50:01 GMT

you will have to boot from hpe ssa and choose to boot from usb:configure array

once you configure it properly, you will be able to use the server properly

otherwise, if the server has a funny array config, it will be sluggish, slow with lots of disk activity that doesnt make any sense

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Sat, 12 Jan 2019 14:02:50 GMT

**bleep**ty firmware again. Don't upgrade the controller to 1.65. I upgraded from 1.60 to 1.65. Server firmware is still ZA10A360.

I upgraded, because HPE claims to have fixed an issue with recognizing the controller on POST. In fact they didn't fix it, it occurs with 1.65:

Problems Fixed:

System might stop responding at POST and fail to load an OS. This issue is more likely to occur if System BIOS version is 1.40 or later. However, systems running older BIOS versions could experience this issue also. (https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?sp4ts.oid=1009955119&swItemId=MTX_d7def6a2a6e34ebb9ae5750ccd&swEnvOid=4184#tab3)

The controller is definitely no qulaity product. Don't use in enterprises or pay a lot of money for fast replacement or another testing server.

###EDIT###

I contacted HPE support and am trying to get in touch with an engineer. I hope HPE can get it finally fixed for everyone.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 01:46:59 GMT

I was on UEFI. The controller is working with legacy mode in version 1.65. I've downgraded to 1.60 and can now use UEFI with controller version 1.60 and Server Firmware version ZA10A360 again...

This helped (I wouldn't have tried Legacy boot without that thread...): https://community.hpe.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-Netservers/RAID-erstellen-HPE-Microserver-Gen10-HPE-Smartarray-e208i-p/m-p/7001253/highlight/false

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

SplatMan — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 11:04:30 GMT

This server and controller is just a nightmare that "keeps on giving". If you haven't bought the server or the controller yet: DONT! Firmware for both is buggy as hell, and unless your time is free and you enjoy new but defunct IT gear you will be happier with ... just about anything else.

I have a Gen10 server (several actually) and the e208i-p RAID controller card.

Latest firmwares for the server and the RAID card doesn't work. The RAID card will only work in Legacy mode and only with CSM disabled (so if booting from USB sticks they better be legacy too). So if you are already the unfortunate owner of this combo and you havent updated firmwares yet: DON'T. Latest versions as suggested by HP doesn't working. The controller shows up in the BIOS in UEFI mode, but attempting to configure the device using the menu system will just exit you to the first page of the BIOS system without explanation (all menu items for the controller does this). And that is if the controller shows up at all.

After reading the forums here, I hoped to downgrade the card to firmware version 1.60 since people have had success with that. That version is not available for download anymore (thanks HP), but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

After countless hours I managed to install Windows 10 on the box in order to run HPE Smart Storage Administrator (HPE SSA) for Windows 64-bit under Legacy mode. I managed to get the software running, and attempted to reconfigure the controller. I expected to build a new configuration in the tool and the reboot the machine, because obviously you can't change the config while running an OS on the same IO subsystem. All fair ... except this approach is impossible. You cant configure anything in the tool without it beeing applied immediatly. So any change that affects the controller will promptly bluescreen the machine with no prior warning. There is no way to build up the config and then apply the changes collectively at the end.

Since the Offline version of HPE SSA doesn't work either, because the card is simply not recognized, this leaves me with virtually no place to go. Other than perhaps starting over with a Linux distro, hoping that will fare better.

The quality of the system BIOS/UEFI, the software, and the controller firmware is abysmal. Amazing, considering how many hours HP has spent making it hard to download these... You have to be "registered" as a customer and your device registered by the serial number to be "entitled" to... get fixes to the broken hardware you paid good money for.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

SplatMan — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 12:06:39 GMT

@Jimmy Vance wrote:
The ISO image does contain the proper directory structure to boot UEFI, did you use the included USB Key utility to create a bootable USB drive?

The UEFI environment seems to only have drivers for a few file systems. This means that a USB key with NTFS will be unable to boot. Which is a giant blunder because 1.) the driver is easy to add to the UEFI firmware so its really sloppy that it hasn't been added, and 2.) Microsoft uses NTFS as the default file system for bootable USB images, so Microsofts default images can't boot on this server.

To successfully boot with UEFI on this server you have to use HP's proprietary images, or build them yourself using a supported file system such as FAT32. Or manually add the file system driver to the embedded UEFI environment, but that's not a natural or easy thing to do for most customers.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 14:24:32 GMT

Thanks for testing. I feel your pain. That card is a shame. I guess we can only access the propritary data on the disks with another card. So I hope the card does not break... I have a second MicroServer Gen10 as a backup server with software RAID. At least on this server I am independent of HPs *****.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

Jimmy Vance — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 15:02:11 GMT

@SplatMan wrote:
@Jimmy Vance wrote:
The ISO image does contain the proper directory structure to boot UEFI, did you use the included USB Key utility to create a bootable USB drive?
The UEFI environment seems to only have drivers for a few file systems. This means that a USB key with NTFS will be unable to boot. Which is a giant blunder because 1.) the driver is easy to add to the UEFI firmware so its really sloppy that it hasn't been added, and 2.) Microsoft uses NTFS as the default file system for bootable USB images, so Microsofts default images can't boot on this server.
To successfully boot with UEFI on this server you have to use HP's proprietary images, or build them yourself using a supported file system such as FAT32. Or manually add the file system driver to the embedded UEFI environment, but that's not a natural or easy thing to do for most customers.

My comment displayed here needs to be in the proper context. Versions 3.25 and older of offline SSA will boot both BIOS and UEFI systems.. The later versions of SSA are designed only to work with UEFI based systems and are not created using the USB key utility. The latest versions are created by just copying the contents over to a FAT32 formated USB key. Read the installation instructions on the download pages tab.

All versions of the e208 firmware including 1.60 are avalable to download, click the revisions history tab to get to the older versions. I currently don't have access to a Gen10 Microserver to look at, I do know they are different to work with than a standard ProLiant server

The SSA usitlity is just for creating and managing the array configurations, it doen't contain any drivers.

The

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

Jimmy Vance — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 15:12:10 GMT

@DanielL1 wrote:
That card is a shame. I guess we can only access the propritary data on the disks with another card.

I've never ran across any manufactures hardware based RAID controller that doesn't use some type of proprietry way of handling the RAID functions. The data can be read by any of the other HPE Smart Array models in the same family. The RAID information is stored in what is known as the RIS area on each disk in the array, it is not stored in teh controller itself. In the event of a card failure, all that is required is installing a new card, or moving the array to another server with a like model controller

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

DanielL1 — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 01:01:26 GMT

Jimmy, do you think we are stupid?!? We can read the docs and are not. According to the docs I am running a fully supported system. BUT ONLY ACCORDING TO THE DOCS! Do you get it? Stupid is recommending things from the docs!

Again, according to the docs, I'm running a fully supported budget system. Do you really think I will buy other more performant hardware if my card fails? Other hardware that's supposed to be supported by the docs?!? The docs??? Hell no!

Do you know what ***** it is if you upgrade a live system to a firmware that doesn't work but should according to the docs? Honestly, get a hand on the server and the card and test them! Test which firmware versions are working with UEFI or legacy BIOS. That helps us. Telling us ***** from the docs does not.

Re: Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

Jimmy Vance — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 11:52:19 GMT

@DanielL1 wrote:
Jimmy, do you think we are stupid?!? We can read the docs and are not. According to the docs I am running a fully supported system. BUT ONLY ACCORDING TO THE DOCS! Do you get it? Stupid is recommending things from the docs!
Again, according to the docs, I'm running a fully supported budget system. Do you really think I will buy other more performant hardware if my card fails? Other hardware that's supposed to be supported by the docs?!? The docs??? Hell no!
Do you know what ***** it is if you upgrade a live system to a firmware that doesn't work but should according to the docs? Honestly, get a hand on the server and the card and test them! Test which firmware versions are working with UEFI or legacy BIOS. That helps us. Telling us ***** from the docs does not.

Sorry that my trying to assist has upset you. I tried explaining some differences in the versions of offline SSA and how to make them work. I didn't just say read the docs, just made reference to the installation instructions on the download page as they are different for the various versions of offline SSA. Good luck with resolving your issues.