DL320 G5p + 4 drive backplane in combination with p410?

[Fili Wiese]

Hello,

I'm trying to give new use to an older HP Proliant DL320 G5p by making it a backup server. So I've bought four 3TB SATA disk-drives to attach to a Smart Array E200/128 BBWC raid-controller only to find out that it doesn't support logical-drives above 2TB. I reckon that I'd probably need a newer model raid-controller such as the SA-P400, P410, P411 or P212. However, I really have a hard time finding out which controller doesn't have this limitation and also fits in this server.

To make matters even more complicated, I've noticed that the SFF8484->4xSATA cable that currently connects the E200 to the four drive backplane of the DL320 G5p also has an additional smaller cable, maybe for power? (Please note the attached picture to see what I mean.) I'm left wondering if the P410 would also supply this connector and if not, does the backplane really need it? What does this cable actually do? Hopefully someone can help me make sense out of the information overload that is HP.com

Thanks in advance,
Fili Wiese

[gregersenj]

Upgrade the fw.

I have just chekked the revsion history on the e200 FW.

» Version: 1.66 (9 May 2007)

Enhancements
Firmware enhancements to allow customers to configure logical drives that are greater than 2 TB in size.
Rebuild optimization improvements which periodically save rebuild status so a rebuild can resume from the last save point in case a power interruption or server/controller reset occurs during a rebuild operation.
I/O performance enhancements.

So upgrade to latest version 1.86(B) may 2010.

BR
/jag

[Fili Wiese]

Thanks gregersenj for your reply. I've checked that. Currently the card is already at version 1.66, upgrading it to 1.86 would probably give no added benefit. Also because i'm not running Windows on the box it's quite hard to flash the firmware since all applicable updates are windows-only and need to run on the machine itself. With one exception, a softpaq upgrade to version 1.72, however I could not get that bootable usb-drive to work (simply said "No dos found" on boot). Got any other suggestions?

Regards,
Fili

[gregersenj · Accepted solution]

There's some performance fixes in the later versions regarding logical drives greater than 2GB.

I have just chekked.
The latest FW DVD 9.30, have support for the DL320 G5P

You can offline fw upgrade the server using a USB memory stick.

HP got a tool to create a bootabel mem stick with FW DVD.

Link to FW DVD:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=dk&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3579703&prodNameId=3579737&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-42012d3b9e264bfdbc1ba78f7b

Link to usb tool:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=dk&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3579703&prodNameId=3579737&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-eee9b3632ced47478f9ef85d43

You will need a 2GB mem stick.

Download the tool, to a windows PC. Double click on the pakages to install the tool.

Download the FW DVD. Unpack it, so you will get an ISO file.

Insert a 2 GB mem stick.
Open the tool
select create new.
Browse the ISO file.
Select the mem stick.

when completet, remove stick (use safe removal)

Put the stick in the server.
power on, and let it boot.

You will gey latest and greates BIOS and FW.

it all works like a charm :)

BR
/jag

[gregersenj]

by the way.

Several Linux is supportet on ProLiant.
And the FW DVD and the Smart Start CD, is Linux based.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?lang=da&cc=dk&prodNameId=3579737&taskId=135&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3579703〈=da&cc=dk

BR
/jag

[Fili Wiese]

You were right, that did work like a charm! The controller is now running 1.86, sadly this did not resolve the situation. The E200 ROM-utilty still thinks that each drive is only 801.6GB in size - even though they are in fact 3TB.

Should I go ahead and ditch the E200 controller for another? And if so, is the mysterious bonus cable (which now runs from the E200 to the backplane) of any significant importance?

Regards,
Fili Wiese

[Fili Wiese]

For anyone reading this thread and wondering how it all turned out;

Apparently all raid-controllers that fit into the DL320 G5p (including E200, P400, P500 and P800) don't support drives above 2TB capacity. Firmware updates don't help and the SmartStart bootable-CD can't handle them either.

The mysterious connector running from the raid-controller to the backplane is probably redundant power from the battery-backing for the backplane itself. This is only an educated guess which no-one seems to be able to confirm.

I'm off buying four new 2TB drives!

Regards,
Fili Wiese

[gregersenj]

I would expect a future fw will support 3 TB drives.

BR
/jag

[gregersenj]

The small cable is either backplane interconnect or internal USB.

Br
/jag