Add NVMe SSD to HP DL360e Gen8?

[Goce Ristov]

I have a HP DL360e Gen8 without disks. I'm thinkig about getting one or two Intel 750 or P3500 NVMe SSDs. According to the specifications the DL360e has two PCIe slots out of which one is PCIe 3.0 x16 and the other PCIe 2.0 x8. In theory these shold be good for two Intel NVMe SSDs.

Do you think they will work fine in the DL360e Gen8? Will they fit? Can you tell me what are the pros and cons by using PCIe NVMe SSDs vs SAS SSDs like the Intel S3500? Can one Intel P3500 NVMe SSD outperform two Intel S3500?

[Goce Ristov]

Any opinion on this subject would be highly appreciated.

[TTr]

Are you still in hacking mode (from your previous posting)? :)

You should check all physical requirements first. The P3500 are half-height half-length x4 slot cards and as you said the server has one x16 slot which per the quickspecs is full-hight half-length.

Then check that there P3500 are supported under the OS you are using or they come with the necessary drivers.

Performance-wise, the P3500 have better specs than the S3500. Also in addition, (I assume you are thinking of the SATA SSDs), the SATA interface is one draw back and anothe is that the SSDs would be attached to an SA controller. The I/O would come to the server from the controller and not directly from the disks. 

[parnassus]

Aren't there also 3rd party drive's non HP/HPE Firmware related issues/restrictions on Gen8/9 Server side?

[Goce Ristov]

Yeah, I'm so much into hacking that I'm thinking I should join the Anonymous. :)

Thank you so much for laying out all the important things I need to check out before going with a NVMe. So it seems like the P3500 would be the best choice. It should fit and won't be limited by the PCIe slot speed.

As OS I plan to use FREENAS as it will also support virtualization from the next version on. It should handle storage, virtualization and maybe my home networking, using pfsense as a virtual machine. It would be a perfect fit for what I plan to do.

Question: the HP DL360e has two PCIe. One is occupied by the HP Smart Array 410. Since FREENAS recommends against RAID controller usage, is it possible to take out the HP Smart Array Controller 410 out and place another Intel DC P3500 in the second PCIe slot? Would I be able to connect normal SAS drives without using a HP Smart Array Controller?

If I decide to remove the HP Smart array controller, is this where I should plug the SAS cable from the disk cage(see the pointing arrow in the picture)? Currently there are two cables running into the HP SA Controller and that slot on the board is only one. What should I do with the second cable?

[TTr]

The SAS connector (your red arrow) is a 4-port SAS connector so only four disks (half cage) would be available. The other four disks would not be connected.

[dirklehmannkg]

Are one able to place Intel DC P3500 into ProLiant DL360R5 X/5160 - 2 GB (partnumber 416566-421) to accelerate running Microsoft SQL Server and Windows 10 Professional on that ProLiant?

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/2662913092170962690

[ADMIN: This link is no longer valid]

Short answer with yes or no is okay. Maybe verfitication if this accelerates exitent OS and databases by so that one would see it imedatly or if this is nonsense.

regards,

Dirk

[Anonymous]

Did you succeed to connect a NVMe drive to your HP DL360e Gen8?

How do you ensure redundancy if the NVMe gets a failure?

I’m thinking och doing the same on a ML350p Gen8.

[SE-HP]

OK the onboard SAS controller is a B110 or B120 which is for todays standard rubbish. The raid controller in the PCI-e slot is better and faster. Problem is that he is a raid controller. For using freenas with that controller you must create virtual drive on the raid controller and does get than presented to freenas. it works perfectly. but one thing will not work. Freenas never know when a drive fail. It will simply miss the drive. the only way to solve that issue is the raid controller out and a host bus adapter in. Some raid controller can be run as RAID and HBA. 

Your disk in the front will be connected to the HBA and the HDD Backplane is a SAS Expander and all your drive will be presented to freenas. But before you start backup all your data on the drives..

The Reason why Freenas wants that ? Freenas is using software raid. and the HP DL3xx is using hardware raid.. And making hardware raid drives and presenting to the Freenas and than making software raid ist ending im disaster. 

It is working and the performance is great with ZFS and Freenas but if one drive fails from hardware raid you got big problems turning up and it takes weeks to restore.

I recommend to you SAS controller out HBA in.  And one thing will happen if you put the Intel NVMe inside. Than 6 fan will spin by 80% and more the entire time.. And you know they loud. reason is the air flow. the intel card is blocking the heat. And it does not matter if the intel card is left of the riser or right. the fans will spin up. they will work but i never did them to get to boot the windows os from. So i used it for database. for many read and write requests. HPE says it is not supported but this does not mean it is not allow to use it.

Some raid controller you also can flash the firmware and they turn into HBA.