Advice please? DL380 G7. Drives not recognised. Raid controller questions. NEWBIE

[robbie73]

Hi all. i hope you can advise. 
I bought a DL380 G7 server with 16 drives (10 900gb + 6 146 gb)
The seller (bargain hardware) advised before purchase "No RAID, RAID & HBA-Mode controller options available. The 'HBA-Mode' controller options will come with single drive pass-thru enabled and may not have other RAID levels immediately available."

I took that to mean they don't have required card to configure drives at post, but O/S or smart start cd (8.5..) ACU could configure it.  However,  thats not the case.
.The attempted install of O/S does not see the drives, so can't continue, despite loading compatible drivers from usb.
.ACU sees the P410i, but with a big yellow exclamation/warning. again no drives.

So i am thinking i need a card or other hardware.  Can you advise please ? Will i just need a SAS EXPANDER?  i looked on amazon (uk) for "HP 468406-B21 SAS Expander Card for HP Smart Array".  

As my server has 2 cages of 8, do i need to get 2 sas expanders?
Will i need anything else ,or,  will this even fix the problem??

Please let me know if i am barking up the wrong tree.  if you need anything else please let me know.  currently the device and hardware is all good as far as the diagnostic utility reports, apart from ACU of course. 

i am a newbie (and autistic) so please forgive me if i dont understand some concepts or abbreviations immediately.

Thank you all for any advice and links to components as well as any explanations.

*EDIT* ok. so i need a raid controller card? and cables.  but will a single raid controller card alone serve two 8 x drive cages (SAS A and SAS B)?  I guess an SAS expander is only any good if i have a raid controller first?
Also,  the current riser card only has 4x PCIe.  Should i get an additional riser with 8x PCIe for the raid controller/s?

Thank you again.  Rob
 

[AM11]

Thank You for contacting HPE support,

Please find the answers below

1> Before you proceed further please make sure the present Raid card is working fine if not you need the Replace the system Board since P410i is integrated to system board or you can install a PCI controller which is less expensive.

The server supports maximum of 16 HDD,s (please refer below quick specs page 6 under Maximum Internal Storage)
https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getdocument.aspx?docname=c04199811#

2> One controller has 2 ports and each port supports 4 Drives so 1 Raid card will support 8 drives ,Therefore you have 2 options either you can install 2 * Raid cards or use 1 Raid card with SAS expander so that it can support all 16 HDD,s

3> If present Raid card is faulty then you will have to Purchase PCI raid card (Required cache and battery)+ PCI SAS expander + SAS cable kit (Which normally comes with SAS expander )

A. SAS Expander
468406-B21 : HP 24 Bay 3Gb SAS Expander Card

B. Smart Array P410 Controller
462862-B21 : HP Smart Array P410/256 2-ports Int PCIe x8 SAS Controller
462864-B21 : HP Smart Array P410/512 BBWC 2-ports Int PCIe x8 SAS Controller
578230-B21 : HP Smart Array P410/512 FBWC 2-ports Int PCIe x8 SAS Controller
572532-B21 : HP Smart Array P410/1G FBWC 2-ports Int PCIe x8 SAS Controller

Thanks
HPE Support