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Re: DL380 G5 - advice on new drives

 
Sternfan2011
Occasional Advisor

DL380 G5 - advice on new drives

Hi all,

I have a DL380 G5 that I am redoing where I need new drives.  Some Qs.

 

  • Can I use these drives?  Drive Link
  • The site says it can, but want to double-check
  • Should the drive cache be disabled in bios?  (I remember a setting like that the last time I set up this server)
  • I have to put 2008 R2 on it now, but plan on upgrading to server 2012.  Has anyone had any issues running 2012 on this server?

thanks,

Rob

 

5 REPLIES 5
waaronb
Respected Contributor

Re: DL380 G5 - advice on new drives

Those 3rd party drives should work okay.

 

For drive caching, I don't know if you mean the caching on the array controller or on the individual drives.  As long as the ACU battery is charged you can have write-cache enabled, and by default it will disable the write-cache if the battery isn't charged or won't hold a charge anymore.

 

You can set the write-cache feature on the drives themselves, but since those won't have a battery to back them up in case of power failure, and since the ACU already has it's own write-caching, it's better to just leave the drive write-caching turned off.  If you had the server on a UPS you could probably do it somewhat safely, but there's probably not much extra benefit.

 

As for Server 2012 on the DL380 G5, I've done it and it works.  There are some drivers for things like the ILO management that you won't find from the DL380 G5 download page, but you can find the ILO 2 drivers on the DL380 G6 download page for Server 2012... it uses the ILO 2 as well.  I think most of the other drivers and software are the same for 2008 and 2012 so you shouldn't have any problems.

Sternfan2011
Occasional Advisor

Re: DL380 G5 - advice on new drives

thanks for the prompt info.

 

I am talking about the cache on the drives, not the controller.  I am fairly sure that there is a way to turn off the drive cache in bios - I can't check now since the server is running.

 

Thanks,

Rob

 

 

 

 

waaronb
Respected Contributor

Re: DL380 G5 - advice on new drives

Yeah, the drive cache is what I meant, you can turn that on or off using the SSA utility (or ACU utility if you have the older version of that).

In SSA you click the controller you want to modify, like P400i and then click "Modify Controller Settings". From that screen you can enable or disable the drive write cache... that's the physical cache on the drives themselves. It's disabled by default.
Sternfan2011
Occasional Advisor

Re: DL380 G5 - advice on new drives

One more Q - what's the largest drive that can work in this server?  The largest I've found so far is 600gb.

 

Thanks,

Rob

waaronb
Respected Contributor

Re: DL380 G5 - advice on new drives

As long as you have a blank drive carrier to start with, you can find any SAS (or SATA) 2.5" drive to use.

 

The largest HP branded drive is currently, I think, the 1.2GB SAS (693648-B21) or the 1TB SATA (625609-B21).

 

I pulled those part numbers from the DL380 G7 quickspecs, but up until the Gen8 models they use the same drive carrier, and those will work on a G5.  It just won't support the fast speeds or anything, but they are big drives.  If you go to the DL380 G5 quickspecs page it doesn't list those... I guess technically they're not supported, but they should work just fine.

 

You do pay a premium for HP branded drives because of the extra testing and whatever else they go through.  For an older server like a G5 you might be okay with 3rd party drives.  You can find blank drive carriers everywhere if you look for them, even Amazon I think.  When I have drives fail, I save the empty carriers too just in case I need one in a pinch.

 

If you didn't are about SAS or SATA for your needs and just want to maximize storage, there's are 2TB SATA drives, SFF.  It's too big for laptop use (too tall, 15mm height for the WD20NPVX), but should fit fine in the drive carrier.  I've had my eye on some of those for use in an old server (DL380 G5) I might setup as a big data archive/source repository for our dev team.