topic Re: BL490C ORCA in BladeSystem - General

BL490C ORCA

JonathanT — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:39:31 GMT

How in the world do I access the ORCA to configure RAID-1 on the internal SSD drives. I've seen this mentioned in all the docs I've poured over, but I can't seem to find a way to trigger the prompt where I can hit F8. Can anyone help me out?

Re: BL490C ORCA

JKytsi — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:32:19 GMT

Can You configure HW RAID with SSD disks ?

Re: BL490C ORCA

JKytsi — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:29:05 GMT

no You can't

Re: BL490C ORCA

Adrian Clint — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:53:59 GMT

Finger trouble?

Yup there is no array controller on the BL490 so nothing to respond to F8. Software RAID only.

Or dont bother with a 2nd drive. SSD drives are nearly as reliable as two spinny disks configured as RAID1.

Re: BL490C ORCA

JKytsi — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:57:55 GMT

I was to eager to answer to myself =)

Re: BL490C ORCA

JonathanT — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:31:49 GMT

Thanks guys for the answer. I agree that SSDs are just about as reliable as single drives, but sometimes they fail or you might need to upgrade a firmware or something. Software raid it is on these guys. I wonder if HP shouldn't update their manual to make this more clear.

Re: BL490C ORCA

Adrian Clint — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:45:39 GMT

Yes you are not the first to ask where the RAID controller is on a BL495 or BL490.

I think people do read the spec but assume it must have a raid controller because all the other servers do.

Re: BL490C ORCA

JonathanT — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:48:25 GMT

I guess one important question is wether ilo2 is going to see an error if a drive were to fail that was connected? Is that going to trigger the amber light, etc. I know it's incredibly unlikely with SSD, but an important thing to probably understand before the server sees production usage. Curious why they bothered to remove the raid controller from some of their highest end models.

Re: BL490C ORCA

Daniel Bowers — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:21:15 GMT

>>I wonder if HP shouldn't update their manual to make this more clear.

They should. (Or I mean "we should" -- I work in that group). The reference to ORCA in the 490 manuals was meant to cover the case of a Smart Array controller in a mezzanine slot (like the P700m). Thanks for flagging this, I'll get the docs clarified.