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Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3

 

Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3

I have a similar problem. We have a Proliant DL380 G3 with an embedded Smart Array 5i controller and 4 36GB 10K ULTRA3 SCSI disks.

We've made write performance tests with RAID1 and RAID0 and we got a poor performace compared with a simple desktop computer.

I don't know if this is a Smart Array 5i RAID controller problem because a IDE 40 GB HDD has better performance than our ULTRA3 SCSI disks on this server.

Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3

This is a good paper for information about performance comparisons between SCSI and IDE disks:

http://www.csl.cornell.edu/~bwhite/papers/ide_scsi.pdf
dsadsda
New Member

Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3

It is almost criminal for HP to sell DL380 G3's with the horrendous Smart Array 5i+ controller without BBWC.

This thing tops out at 70 Mbits/s write under Win2K as shipped, regardless of number of HDs or RAID level.

I have gotten a very bad taste in my mouth for HP equipment because I had to go back and specify a new Smart Array controller with BBWC for several DL380's I purchased and deployed to remote sites.

HP, please change the default RAID controller on the DL380!
Mike Jordan_1
Occasional Contributor

Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3


I have two DL380 G3's that are being configured for a SQL database. They have the 5i controller. How can I tell if it has or doesn't have the BBWC option?

Thanks

Mike
neliz
New Member

Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3

2 simple ways mike:

1. In the ACU, if you can set the cache to anything other thatn 100% read 0% write, you have BBWC.
Without it, you won't be able to set your write cache to anything other than 0%.

If you open the machine, on the mainboard you should see a small daughter board installed, this includes memory and some smaller, round batteries.
Gianni_12
Advisor

Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3

Hi you all. I have read this thread, and i am scared. We probably have like 15 DL 380 G2, G3 and G4s. Im very sure that none of these servers have BBWC optiony. Many of them are running SQL server with others applications. Should i buy this BBWC option for all these Smart array 5i and 6i controllers? there is any whitepaper or document that explains the performance difference between the two? wich applications will benefit the most from this upgrade? Exchange 2003? SQL 2000? only databases or normal applications too?

I would appreciate any help
Jeff Allen_5
Valued Contributor

Re: Poor performance Disk DL380 G3

I dont know about criminal - the way I see it is if you want the extra performance, you need to pay for it. The redundancy part of RAID was given to you for free - pretty nice. If they enabled Write caching with no battery, that woudl be a disservice to anyone.

Anyway, HP just released a paper on enhancing performance with RAID 5 on 5i/6i controllers (ignore the title of the paper). http://h200005.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00366606/c00366606.pdf