DL580 G5 2nd backplane

[Mike Texter]

Hi Everyone,

We have a customer with a DL580G5 (I know...) and they're looking to add a 2nd backplane to it. HPE Quickspecs and Partsurfer are pretty useless on showing the exact parts needed to accomplish this, and I was curious if you had ever done one before. I know the backplane I need is just a 449420-001, but I can find nothing on the cables, sas expander card, or additional controller required.

If anyone is able to help with a parts list I'd certainly appreciate it.

[ShruthiSK]

Hi, 

I was able to find a 24 Bay SAS exapnder card information from the server quickspecs. 

Link: https://partsurfer.hpe.com/Search.aspx?SearchText=468406-B21

Pdf [Pg 29]: https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getdocument.aspx?docname=c04282606

This -B21 part is pulling out the part information for the SAS expander and the cables needed for the connection. 

Below are the parts information: 

Part #: 487738-001
Part Description: 24 bay SAS expander board - Requires PCIe x8 slot - Has eight internal x4 mini-SAS ports (two ports connect to the controller board) - For up to 6Gb/sec transfer rate SAS and up to 3Gb/sec transfer rate SATA - For use with the P410/P410i SAS controller

Part #: 498426-001
Part Description: Mini-SAS cable assembly - 838mm (33 inches) long - Connects between the hard drive backplane board and the SAS controller board

Part #: 498425-001
Part Description: Straight mini-SAS to Straight mini-SAS cable assembly - 711mm (28.0 inches) long

Regards,

Shruthi (HPE Employee)

[Mike Texter]

Yep I did find that SAS expander on the 580G5 quickspecs page, but unfortunately the G5 backplane is not SFF-8087/Mini-SAS, so the cables listed there only get us part of the way.  I ended up using four Dell cables (SFF-8087 to SFF-8484) to make the expander-backplane connections.  Couldn't find an HP part number that met the requirements. 

The P410 controller was connected successfully with 2 of the Mini-SAS cables.  Since we ended up with the parts from the -B21 expander kit, I ended up just using the two different lengths to make the expander-controller connections.  Partsurfer and quickspecs also neglect to mention in the backplane kit number...well, anything useful at all, other than the backplane spare part number.  They don't have appropriate SAS cables or a power cable listed there.  I was able to find the correct power cable though, p/n is 394038-003. 

Now I get to plug everything in and pray it all works.

edit: I also initially missed the note about the SAS expander requiring a 256MB or greater cache, which means I need a cache battery too.  P/n for that is 398648-001.

[Mike Texter · Accepted solution]

I've got it.

Adding a 2nd 8-bay backplane to these requires the following list of parts (assuming you need the ability to span a RAID across both backplanes):

The complete list of parts required to upgrade a DL580G5 from one backplane to two, assuming you want all 16 drives on one controller, is as follows:
1x 449420-001 Backplane
1x 394038-003 Backplane power cable
1x 487738-001 SAS Expander card (PCI-e x4)
1x 462919-001 P410 controller
1x 462974-001 P410 256MB Cache module (larger sizes also exist, but you need to have a cache of some kind)
1x 398648-001 Cache battery
1x 488138-001 Cache battery cable
2x 498425-001 SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cables (any length or brand should work, as long as the ends are STRAIGHT, NOT ANGLED) These connect the controller to the sas expander card
4x SFF-8087 to SFF-8484 cables, 22" or longer (again you should be able to use any brand you find as long as the ends are STRAIGHT, NOT ANGLED, I found [https://www.tripplite.com/internal-sas-cable-mini-sas-sff-8087-to-4-in-1-32pin-sff-8484-3-ft-1m~S510003 these] online)
I couldn't find an HP part number for this type of cable to save my life, not sure that it even exists.
Initially I used Dell p/n FTTNX, but only half of the SFF-8484 connector is wired on these for some inexplicable reason, so only half of my drives showed up when I used these.
This took me forever to figure out.

Now, in terms of hardware you should have everything you need. Firmware on the P410 controller needs to be at a minimum of 3.66 to work with the SAS expander at its latest firmware version which is 2.10(C). For some reason my P410 controller thinks that all 16 drives are installed in "bay 55" which of course doesn't exist in this server, but that's fine for our purposes. Also this setup doesn't seem to know how to make any of the LEDs in the backplane blink, so you'll have to launch HP Smart Storage Administrator every once in awhile to make sure none of your drives are going bad.

All of this allows you to see and manage all 16 drives from one controller, create a RAID across both backplanes, etc.