P408i-p: Poor performance and forced cache settings

[stefan01]

Hi.

I have two P408i-p controllers, each in a microserver gen10. Every controller has four 8TB disks (no SMR) connected, no battery, and both servers are connected to a UPS. The four drives are configured as RAID5, no spare, disk cache enabled.

The write performance is very poor. With huge files, I get roughly 160MB/s of write speed. A single drive, put to the test, will exceed that easily. This is after enabling the first controller's cache.

Which brings up my next problem: The second controller is at a newer firmware version and doesn't allow the cache to be enabled, which makes the already slow controller even slower. Without cache, I reach roughly 30MB/s on all four disks. 

So two questions: How can I force the second controller to enable the cache, and why is it so awfully slow?

Thanks.

[Shrey27]

Hi,

Greetings for the day.

Upon checking the quick specifications of the Microserver Gen10 and P408i-p controller, it suggest that the P408i-p controller is not a compatible controller with the Microserver Gen10 Servers.

Kindly find the Quick specs for Microserver Gen10 and P408i-p controller for reference:

Microserver Gen10 Quick Specs:

https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getdocument.aspx?docname=a00008701enw#

P408i-p Quick Specs:

 https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getdocument.aspx?docname=a00008203enw

Since microserver Gen10 is an entry level server, the controller tried and tested by HPE on the same is E208-p.

Thanks

[stefan01]

@Shrey27  Thanks for your reply. I know the quick specs, but where do they contradict each other? The E208 is an utter piece of garbage, and even slower than the already slow P408.

Why do you say that there#s a suggestion the "P408 controller is not a compatible controller with the Microserver Gen10"?

[Shrey27]

Hello Stefan01,

As mentioned earlier, the quick specs of P408i-p controller does not show Microserver Gen10 in the compatibility list.

Since P408i-p is not listed in the Quickspecs so we cannot comment on working of the server with the this card.

Please see the list of compatible servers for P408i-p controller (available in the quick specs of the controller shared earlier):

Compatibility

• HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10
• HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10
• HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen10
• HPE ProLiant DL560 Gen10
• HPE ProLiant DL580 Gen10
• HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10
• HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen10
• HPE ProLiant XL170r Gen10
• HPE ProLiant XL190r Gen10  
• HPE ProLiant XL230K Gen10

Thanks