Problems installing 128MB Cache Card in DL360 G5 Smart Array E200i

[Olaf Tempelmeier]

Hi everyone,
since I want to have a RAID 5 in my DL 360 G5 I bought a 128 MB Cache Card with BBWC (PN: 351580-B21).
The Support Guy told me that it is just plug'n play: Remove the old Cache (64 MB) Card and Plug in the new one. But this won't work: The Battery pack is thicker than the space between Slot and Controller Card (embedded)! So I tried it with out Battery Pack and it worked.
Here are my Questions:

Can I work without the Battery Pack or is the performance slow ?
Does alternative Cache-Cards or Batterypacks exits for this Controller ?

Thanks in advance !

[James ~ Happy Dude]

128MB Battery-Backed Write Cache (PN 351580-B21) upgrade for the SA-E200i:

* HP ProLiant BL (BladeSystem)
o ProLiant BL460c Server Blade
* HP ProLiant ML (expansion-optimized)
o ProLiant ML350 G5

128MB Battery-Backed Write Cache with Battery Housing (PN 346914-B21) upgrade for the SA-E200i:

* HP ProLiant BL (BladeSystem)
o ProLiant BL20p Server Blade G4
* HP ProLiant DL (rack-maximized)
o ProLiant DL360 G5


Inshort U have got the wrong part.

U need to have 346914-B21

Cheers !
James.

[James ~ Happy Dude]

& FYI
Battery-backed write cache upgrade provides for up to three days of battery power for data cache retention. The data backup duration could be extended anytime the server's auxiliary power is available during system power down.

So, its better if you keep the BBWC(right part)

Cheers Again !

James.

[Olaf Tempelmeier]

Hi James,
thanks for your quick answer. The Battery Option is not that important to me. I'd like to know in addition if this Cache Card without Battery works in the same way (in focus of the perfomance) like with an installed one...

Kind Regards Olaf

[KarloChacon]

Hi Olaf

Sujith told you what is important the battery

read this

NOTE: RAID 5 is available with the 128MB BBWC option on the Smart Array E200i.


so if you wnat to use RAID you'll need to install that.

from here
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12460_na/12460_na.html

regards

[Olaf Tempelmeier]

Hi Karlo,

maybe I wrote it a little complicated. I understood, that I need the 128 MB Cache Card for RAID 5 (this is working well even w/o battery)

What I wanted to know, is when I use the 128 MB Cache Card w/o battery, will I have a performance loss, or is this battery back simply against data-loss ?

thanks again !
Regards
Olaf

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

When you have the battery installed, the cache card can be used for speeding up both read and write operations.

If power is lost when a write operation is not complete, the battery allows the unwritten data to stay in the cache card's memory: hopefully the power is restored before the battery runs out.

If the battery is not installed, the write cache cannot be used safely: any loss of power would cause the cached data that is not yet written to disk to be lost. The data on your disks would be incomplete and effectively corrupted.

If the battery is disconnected, the cache is automatically disabled for write operations: it is used for read operations only. This will hurt performance by some amount: the exact amount of performance loss depends on your application's read/write patterns.

MK

[Olaf Tempelmeier]

Hi Matti,

thank you very much for your Answer. This helped well and now I know, what I wanted to know ! ;o)

Kind Regards
Olaf

[Olaf Tempelmeier]

Now I can decide wether to exchange or to keep the "wrong" cache card.