HP Integrity BL860c i2 - how to use the internal drive controller?

[wentigels]

I have two BL860c i2 servers bought several years apart from different resellers, and two EH0146FAWJB hard disks (which I chose from HP's options list for the server model), and neither of the servers recognise the hard disks - the P410i says "No Drives Detected" during startup, and the lights go amber. One then says "The controller is currently in RAID mode" and the other says "The controller is currently in HBA mode". I haven't been able to get into the setup menu for the controller and there is no button prompt. I previously tried other HP SAS disks as well as third-party consumer SATA SSDs and none of them were recognised.

I was able to update to the latest firmware for the drive controller on one server, while the other one will not run the updater for some reason, and I also used a proliant server to update the firmware on the disks themselves. This didn't make any difference. There is newer firmware in existence for other components of the servers but it all requires a **bleep** HPE support contract, and it seems unlikely to be relevant anyway.

Since it's two servers doing this I feel like there has to be something I can do about it. Does anyone have any pointers for how I might get these things working?

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. HPE Integrity BL860c i2,BL870c i2,&BL890c i2 Server Blade User ServiceGuide

2. HP Integrity BL860c i2 Server Blade - Configuring Storage

Please click on "Thumbs Up/Kudo" icon to give a "Kudo".

Thank you for being a HPE valuable community member.

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

Here is an document that I found.
Integrity BL860c/BL870c/BL890c i2 Server series - How to Configure a Hardware Raid for the Internal Drives

Smart Array P410i, Supplemental Update / Online ROM Flash Component

Thank You!
I work with HPE but opinions expressed here are mine.
Recent Support Video Releases

[georgek_1]

Hello wentigels,

Smart array controller has 2 modes as you mentioned, HBA mode or the RAID mode .
As name suggests, you would be able to create RAID volume using the disks attached when the contoller is in RAID mode .
With HBA mode, the disks would be available "as it is" to OS , thus system admin could use them for creating software RAID/mirror etc..

You could check the controller mode / controller details using # sautil /dev/ciss0  and look for "Contoller mode"(get the correct device name from ioscan -fn).
This would also help you check the disk status such as "OK/SPARE/failed" etc, and the details will be with section "SAS/SATA DEVICE SUMMARY" .

Thank you
I am an HPE Employee (HPE Community)