Need Advice on Expanding Storage on DL380 G7

[Nudais]

Hello folks,

Could use some advice & verification before I spend the money and upgrade. Can you help?

WHAT I HAVE: DL380 G7, 8 discs, optical drive & a P410 controller upgraded with 512MB BBWC module.

WHAT I WANT: Upgrade to 16 discs.

WHAT I THINK I NEED TO DO:

1. Remove the optical drive.
2. Install 8 drive SFF drive cage (Part# 516914-B21)
3. Install an additional P410 controller upgraded with 512MB BBWC module.
4. Install 8 more SAS drives into the new bays.
5. Access the RAID controller setup utility at boot up to create another couple of arrays (4 discs in each).

Overall, is this correct? If not where have I gone wrong? Assuming it's correct, is this a difficult process? Do you know of any documentation which tells you exactly how to do this? I'm more a software guy than hardware. If there's any way to connect the wrong cable to the wrong port and end up frying my DL380, I'll find it. I'm clever that way! I run a pair of 460W PSUs. Is that still sufficient going from 8 discs to 16? What about cooling? Anything I should be concerned about? I have a box fan aimed directly at the front of my DL380 and it seems happy enough with that plus normal home AC. 

I'm apprehensive because some cage listings talk about a back plane and cables, others don't. I just want to make sure I buy everything I need first time.

Finally, I originally bought my DL380 with the optical drive because I needed to load/install software from disc. I vaguely remember being told there's an alternative way to boot from/load software using a thumb drive connected to an internal USB. Is that correct?  

Thank you so much in advance for your help & expertise.

[sudhirsingh]

Hi,

Power - You can use HP Power Advisor at "https://paonline56.itcs.hpe.com/?Page=Index" ,  to calculate power usuages and based on that you can decide whether you need power supply upgrade.

Fan/cooling - Ensure that you have required fans installed for proper functioning of the server, One processor models include four fans and for second processor you should install two additional fans,

Second SFF drive cage requires second controller or HP SAS Expander Card (PN 468406-B21)

(two cages can be used if an optical drive is not required)

Parts you need:

1. P410 Controller with cache (You can choose either of them)

HP Smart Array P410/512 BBWC 2-ports Int PCIe x8 SAS Controller 462864-B21
HP Smart Array P410/512 FBWC 2-ports Int PCIe x8 SAS Controller 578230-B21
HP Smart Array P410/1G FBWC 2-ports Int PCIe x8 SAS Controller 572532-B21

2. SFF SAS Backplane Board : 507690-001, and

3. HP 8SFF DRIVE CAGE 380G6/G7 Kit : 516914-B21 This Kit includes following

Two SAS cables : 498425-001
One Drive Backplane power cables : 514217-001
One Drive Cage -496074-001 (Does not include the hard drive backplane board)

Few reference documents that might be useful to you:

Refer HP ProLiant DL380 G7 Server Maintenance and Service Guide (Refer for Drive cage,Optical drive remove/install instruction)
https://content.etilize.com/User-Manual/1018996072.pdf

Customer Self Repair Services Media Library (Remove/Install Videos)
https://sml-csr.ext.hpe.com/

Server Quickspecs (Spare information)

https://www.itcreations.com/user-manuals/dl380g7/HP-ProLiant-DL380-Generation-7-(G7)-QuickSpecs.pdf

Regards,

Sudhir

[Nudais]

Sudhir -

Thank you so much for responding. I really appreciate it. I will review those docs and move forward from there.

Thanks again,

Sean.