HP DL120 G6 - SATA RAID P212, Maxtor Disks Firmware Too New ?

[Matthew Darcy]

I've got a HP DL 120 G6 rack mount server, with the CCISS HP P212 SATA raid controller, with 256 meg ram and battery backup.

Machine has 4 disk ports in it, I was initially using 2 x 147MB disks in a raid 1 mirrored configuration. Before deploying this server I decided to upgrade the 2 x 147 disks to 2 x 250GB disks  to provide a little more room for some backup/archiving of some items.

Upon installing the 250GB disks supplied by a HP resaller, I removed the 147GB disks, and installed 2 x identical 250GB disks.

Entering the P212 controller page at boot up I got an error message stating that the disks where running a newer firmware than the P212 disk controller firmware in this machine.

No problem, I grabbed the latest HP firmware CD for the DL 120 G6, from 5th May 2011

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=4091432&spf_p.tpst=psiSwdMain&spf_p.prp_psiSwdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Dlang%253Den%257Ccc%253DUS%257CprodSeriesId%253D4091412%257CprodNameId%253D4091432%257CswEnvOID%253D1005%257CswLang%253D8%257CswItem%253DMTX-94560dcc34e845edbb13a26792%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignett...

And updated the firmware to the current version.

Upon restarting I found the disks still had the same error and would not form an array.

I re-installed the 147GB disks and confirmed an array could be built and installed RHEL Linux 6 to do some debugging, and put the 2 x 250GB disks in slot 3 and 4 (so the machine now had 2 x 147GB disks in slots 1 and 2 in a mirrored raid configuration and 2 x 250GB disks in slots 3 and 4 for debugging).

Upon booting this time the raid controller did not complain about the firmware on the disks (I don't know if this is a good/bad thing - yes, I'm using/booting from the 2 x 147GB's but the 250's are still present so should in my head still error).

using the HP smart array tools I pulled the following information on the two 250GB disks in slot 3 and 4

     physicaldrive 1I:1:3
         Port: 1I
         Box: 1
         Bay: 3
         Status: OK
         Drive Type: Unassigned Drive
         Interface Type: SATA
         Size: 250 GB
         Firmware Revision: YAR511W0
         Serial Number: Y6995D4E
         Model: ATA     Maxtor 7Y250M0
         SATA NCQ Capable: False
         PHY Count: 1
         PHY Transfer Rate: 1.5GBPS

      physicaldrive 1I:1:4
         Port: 1I
         Box: 1
         Bay: 4
         Status: OK
         Drive Type: Unassigned Drive
         Interface Type: SATA
         Size: 250 GB
         Firmware Revision: YAR511W0
         Serial Number: Y694KYEE
         Model: ATA     Maxtor 7Y250M0
         SATA NCQ Capable: False
         PHY Count: 1
         PHY Transfer Rate: 1.5GBPS

As you can see, they are identical and they are "seen" by the raid controller fine.

Here is an overview of the controller

mart Array P212 in Slot 1                (sn: PACCP9SZ3KBE  )

   array A (SATA, Unused Space: 0 MB)

      logicaldrive 1 (149.0 GB, RAID 1, OK)

      physicaldrive 1I:1:1 (port 1I:box 1:bay 1, SATA, 160 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:2 (port 1I:box 1:bay 2, SATA, 160 GB, OK)

   unassigned

      physicaldrive 1I:1:3 (port 1I:box 1:bay 3, SATA, 250 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:4 (port 1I:box 1:bay 4, SATA, 250 GB, OK)

The array shows a good status in generall

Smart Array P212 in Slot 1
   Controller Status: OK
   Cache Status: OK
   Battery/Capacitor Status: OK

So why can I not use these drives with the current firmware on the P212 / drives

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to provide detail.

[TVVJ]

Please provide the option part numbers of the hard drives and also the Array Diagnostics Utility report from the server. Please launch the Array Configuration Utility and check if the drives are detected there and if so, try creating a simple mirrored array out of 250 GB drives to check if they can be controlled by the Smart Array Controller. If any error message, please upload screenshots along with the ADU report.

Regards,

Vijayasarathy

[Matthew Darcy]

The model numbers of the disks are

Model: ATA Maxtor 7Y250M0

as I stated in my original post I can't create an array out of the two 250GB disks

I can't take a screen shot as there is no "OS" on the machine to take a screen shot of this so I'll have to do something with my camera ASAP.

An interesting point is while I am running from the 147GB mirrored disks in slot 1,2 with the 250GB's in 3,4 and I was able to create an mirrored array of the two 250GB disks using the hp hpacucli tool (just a test array)

ctrl slot=1 create type=ld drives=1I:1:3,1I:1:4 size=300 raid=1

which created the following array

     Logical Drive: 2
         Size: 298 MB
         Fault Tolerance: RAID 1
         Heads: 255
         Sectors Per Track: 32
         Cylinders: 75
         Strip Size: 256 KB
         Status: Failed
         Array Accelerator: Enabled
         Unique Identifier: 600508B1001CD3632CFB169D25E8289E
         Mount Points: None
         Logical Drive Label: A03DB631PACCP9SZ3KBE91A4
         Mirror Group 0:
            physicaldrive 1I:1:3 (port 1I:box 1:bay 3, SATA, 250 GB, Failed)
         Mirror Group 1:
            physicaldrive 1I:1:4 (port 1I:box 1:bay 4, SATA, 250 GB, Failed)

      physicaldrive 1I:1:3
         Port: 1I
         Box: 1
         Bay: 3
         Status: Failed
         Drive Type: Data Drive
         Interface Type: SATA
         Size: 250 GB
         Firmware Revision: YAR511W0
         Serial Number: Y6995D4E
         Model: ATA     Maxtor 7Y250M0
         SATA NCQ Capable: False
         PHY Count: 1
         PHY Transfer Rate: 1.5GBPS

      physicaldrive 1I:1:4
         Port: 1I
         Box: 1
         Bay: 4
         Status: Failed
         Drive Type: Data Drive
         Interface Type: SATA
         Size: 250 GB
         Firmware Revision: YAR511W0
         Serial Number: Y694KYEE
         Model: ATA     Maxtor 7Y250M0
         SATA NCQ Capable: False
         PHY Count: 1
         PHY Transfer Rate: 1.5GBPS

I realised I've not provided the detail on the P212 controller itself, so here is that info

Smart Array P212 in Slot 1
   Bus Interface: PCI
   Slot: 1
   Serial Number: PACCP9SZ3KBE
   Cache Serial Number: PACCQ9SZ1S97
   RAID 6 (ADG) Status: Disabled
   Controller Status: OK
   Hardware Revision: Rev C
   Firmware Version: 5.14
   Rebuild Priority: Medium
   Expand Priority: Medium
   Surface Scan Delay: 15 secs
   Surface Scan Mode: Idle
   Queue Depth: Automatic
   Monitor and Performance Delay: 60 min
   Elevator Sort: Enabled
   Degraded Performance Optimization: Disabled
   Inconsistency Repair Policy: Disabled
   Wait for Cache Room: Disabled
   Surface Analysis Inconsistency Notification: Disabled
   Post Prompt Timeout: 0 secs
   Cache Board Present: True
   Cache Status: OK
   Accelerator Ratio: 25% Read / 75% Write
   Drive Write Cache: Disabled
   Total Cache Size: 256 MB
   No-Battery Write Cache: Disabled
   Cache Backup Power Source: Batteries
   Battery/Capacitor Count: 1
   Battery/Capacitor Status: OK
   SATA NCQ Supported: True

Is this of any use, or do you require additional information to offer advice.