Is there a way to update the firmware on the RAID card?

[abacabb]

I have a DL380 G4. Right now it supports RAID 0, 5, and 1+0.

I wanted to see if there's a firmware update for the RAID so it can support more kinds of it. (1,0+1..etc etc)

[TTr]

You have all the features that you need, raid10 with only two drives is the same as raid1. Raid0+1 is not available and I don't think you want to use raid0+1 ever.

In any case the firmware upgrades do not add any raid features to the card, they fix any bugs or improve performance.

[David Claypool]

RAID 6 or what we call Advanced Data Guarding, is available as a license-able feature, and provides similar capabilities to RAID 5 but can sustain more than a single disk failure.

RAID 1+0 is the standard used by SmartArray which offers the redundancy of mirroring with the performance advantage of striping.

An unqualified "RAID 1" essentially implies a performance hit since you don't get the benefits of reads of alternate tracks from alternate drives.

If by RAID 0+1 you mean striping data across multiple drives and then mirroring that set to an identical set, there are no performance or redundancy advantages and it unnecessarily complicates removal/replacement of drives. Old rationales based on parallel SCSI technology of the past have been obviated by more modern approaches.

[Pieter 't Hart]

apart from above remarks about supported raid, you do not give any details about OS or firmware involved.

but for the question "is there a way to update the firmware"
- go to the support page
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=3288132〈=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=397634&taskId=135
- select your OS.
- like for w2k3 there is "Smart Update Firmware DVD "
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=397634&prodNameId=3288132&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-3380ae888f86436aac54c149eb

[gregersenj]

The embedded SA on the G4 support 0, 5 and 1+0 (or 0+1).

There has been a few changes in the past 10 years.
In the old days they used to support 0, 1, 5 and 0+1 (Compaq did call stripped mirrors 0+1)

One change was the additon of ADG (RAID 6), but that was only supported on the 5300 and 6400 controller.
On the 5300 it required a ADG enabler.
Can't remember with the 6400.

another change.
They remove RAID 1. Since if you use 2 disk only in a RAID 0+1 or 1+0. You actually got a RAID 1.
That was introduced with the ORCA, if I remember correctly.

Then came the HP - Compaq merger, and RAID 0+1 naming was changed to 1+0. But still the same stuff - stripped mirrors.

With the SAS/SATA Smart Array controllers, you now need BBWC to use RAID 5, ADG and online migration / expantion.

So no. FW upgrade will not add more RAID levels, but it might improve stability.

BR
/jag