Netserver E30

[Ron Arnold]

Hi. Need some help. I want to help the firm where my wife works (free of charge of course) to upgrade their E30 Server. I have looked at the online manual but it hasn't helped me much. The server is in original condidtion (nothing has been adddded or upgrdaed since they bought it - hardware or software - they are running on Novell system)and althoguh it still meets their basic needs they could really use an upgrade in storage capacity since it has the original 13gb hard drive. I would like to know if it is possible to add a USB card to the main board so I can add an USB Hard drive or failing that then add an internal hard drive & if I do so what limitations on type & size of hard drive am I looking at. The other problem is their hub. It is a 16 port hub but only supports 10mbps. Is there going to be a problem if I uopgrade to a new hub with the standard 10/100 switch. It almost looks like (in the manual) that it won't support the 100mbps speed - is that possible? Any help would be much appreciated as I am a total novice in the networking area.

[e4services · Accepted solution]

Not being very familar with this specific madel, the E30, I did look into the model. It does seem to reference models have either SCSI or IDE hard drives or support for both. Though I would assume that Single Ended (SE)SCSI hard drives are used. This was typical of the E and L Series of that era. This also is what is shown at HP Partsurfer, where they only list the 2 and 4GB drives as being supplied with the unit.

From the User Manual; The HP NetServer E Series chassis contains six mass-storage shelves. The front four shelves (shelves 1â 4) allow for the installation of a 3.5" flexible disk drive and three 3.5" or 5.25" mass storage devices. The rear shelves (shelves 5 and 6)allow for the installation of two 3.5" mass storage devices.

First, the USB drive suggestion I would not consider. The BIOS and probably the OS would not likely support such a device even if you could get a USB card installed.

I would suggest opening up the unit and verify the physical drive or drives that are installed. FYI there would be only a few limitations on the addition of a new drive to provide additional space. A new IDE might be limited by the IDE controller to 40GB. But I would assume that the machine is using an Adaptec SCSI controller and has 3- 4GB drives to give the 13GBs. A new SCSI drive may or may not have limitations because these old units uses Single Ended SCSI or SE mode. Modern drives can communicate on a SE bus, but the controller may not install them during BIOS boot, therefore though you could add any new 36, 72GB 68pin SCSI drive currently avaiable and it may be accessable by the controller, it would be more sure to install a drive that is able to be forced to SE bus mode. We have a few of these 68pin drives in stock. 18 and 36GB or could point you in the right direction to purchase one.

[e4services]

Here is the Upgrade Roadmap diagram for more info on the E30 Storage.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpn11584/lpn11584.pdf
Section 7 address the Mass Storage and availavle shelves and locations for you to see waht you already have.

[Ron Arnold]

Thank-you so much for your help. Could you post a url for me to go to your site then to order 1 of those drives you mention. I will forget about the USB and just add the internal one you point me too. Any suggestions on a new 10/100 Hub as far as will it make much differance, in your opinion, to overall network speed compared to the just 10 mbps they currently are using? I doubt they ever will have more than 10 users.

[e4services]

I forgot the Networking question.
HP shows the the E30 could have been configured with a 10-Mbit lan card, J297xA or a 10/100 lan card, J25xxX. Of course you can replace the HUB anyway with a switch and you would get some increase in access speed, even if the server card wa sonly 10Mbit. You also could easily replace any 10Mbit cards with 10/100, they are cheap.

I will look at what we currently have for 68pin SCSI SE forcable drives, but the parts we list that are usable are at http://e4services.net/cotrdr.html