Expansion of DL380 Gen9 Drives via drive bay insert possible?

[Albert Gostick]

We have a DL380G9 that we use for backup storage.  It is old but still functional.  The main storage array has 8 drives and we could use more space on it (now 8 x 1TB, Raid 5, ca. 7.6TB capacity).  This server not due for a refresh for a couple years but we do have a few more 1TB drives to extend the life of it.  I would like to know if I can somehow put a drive cage in the middle bay of the server and add drives to increase the array capacity.  Here is the layout:

- Bay 1, 2 drives x 300GB, controller Smart HBA H240ar (on motherboard); raid 1, OS and application volume

- Bay 2: not used

- Bay 3: 8 x 1.2 TB SFF drives (main storage volume); controller Smart HBA H240; controller in PCI Slot 3; this array seems to be serviced by 2 ports i.e. in iLO, 4 drives have port 1 and 4 are on port 2; don't have ready access to server to confirm 2 cables go from the drive cage to the controller but assume that this is what it means

- PCI Slot 1 is controller Smart HBA H241; only thing plugged into this is a tape drive

HP lists an expansion drive cage that can go in Bay 2; this is part 768857-B21 in the original specs document.  Questions:

1) if I got this cage, what else would I need to make it operable? another controller or can I plug into any of the existing controllers?

2) assuming this works and I added drives to the cage, can this be part of the current 8 x 1.2 TB array (extending the drives in the RAID) or would it have to be a separate volume (and assigned a separate drive letter to use).

Thanks for any help.

Albert

[TVVJ]

Hello,

Once the cage is installed successfully add one drive at a time and use the option expand to include that drive to the existing drive. Once expanded, you may then extend the logical drive to use the extra space.

You may refer to "HPE 12Gb SAS Expander card with cables for DL380 Gen9 (727250-B21)" for expander card part information. You may refer to the document "HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen9 Server - Cabling" for cabling information.

Regards,

[Albert Gostick]

Hi @TVVJ . 

Thanks for responding.  So if I understand this right I would need to do this:

1) buy the disk cage for Bay 2 (part 768857-B21) (Bay 3 currently has the bank of 8 drives)

2) from the link you gave (https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docLocale=en_US&docId=a00018942en_us&page=GUID-8A4618B2-BF0C-4DFD-AC1B-F5673BFC55B9.html), buy the SAS expansion board (761879-001).  I assume it contains the cables needed to connect all the drive bays

3) install the expansion card into an existing slot; here is where it gets fuzzy: does this new card get plugged into one of the existing controllers (2 cables) and then does the existing bank of drives get unplugged from the existing controller and instead plugged into the the new expansion card?

4) add the new drives to the new cage

5) rebuild the array which I assume wipes out the data (or does it?)

Thanks,

Albert