ML110 Gen11 with VROC sSATA SoftRaid Array have a very slow write performance

[roliw]

Hello,

A new ML110 Gen11 with VROC sSATA SoftRaid Array have a very slow write performance. I cannot enable

the write cache. Whe I check the write cache box, I will get: this feature is not supported.

Is there another way to enable the cache?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Roland

[roliw]

In additional here is the transfer of a 45Gb directory. First everything went fine, then:

evrything goes very slow.

[TVVJ]

Hello,

Well not sure if this could help - If the storage drivers are not installed, you could install them and see if it helps.

Regards,

[roliw]

Hello,

Thank you very much. All this drivers installed, double checked and server
restarted. It doesn't works. Please see:

additional here a picture of the resource monitor. The activity stays permanetely by 100 %:

Regards,
Roland

[roliw]

No, the problem persists. Installing the driver updates doesn't solves the problem.
The disk performance ist further very bad. See above.
Any help is much appreciated!

[Bunsol]

Update the BIOS to the latest and check if it helps as Inter Vroc is controller by CPU:-
https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/softwaredetails?language=en_US&softwareId=MTX_24ed3fe2d8e146ec9739af6554&tab=revisionHistory

If the issue persists then log a support ticket.
https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/?language=en_US

 

[roliw]

Hello,

Thank you very much, but it doesn't works. The system ROM is now updated
to U63 v2.12 (12/13/2023). The performance is the same as above:

Can anyone please tell me:
- The server is equipped with 4 x 1 GB original HPE Harddisk's in a RAID 5 array.
   Is it necesseray to use SSD's instead of mechanical disks?

Any Firm- and Software is updated now and the server is exactly the same way
slow as in the beginning.
For any help I would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Roland

[Bunsol]

If the firmware and driver are updated and still issue persists then it might require deeper analysis from the logs. As requested please log a support ticket.

[roliw]

@Bunsol Sorry, but how can I do that? I have nearby 30 years
Compaq/HP/HPE experience and never needed before.

[roliw]

I have posted a support case.
Thanks all for the help!.

[roliw · Accepted solution]

At last, what I've found:

I have spent a lot of hours to figure out the transfer speed problem
between a PC and the ProLiant ML110 Gen11 Server with VROC soft-
RAID5 array.

I have demoted the server from customers domain
removed the array and cleaned the data
recreated the array
Windows Server 2019 fresh installed
consequently all new drivers and updates installed

But it was not the old installation nor the old drivers I had used for
the server (date of installation: begin of December 2023, new drivers
date: middle of January 2024), that was to blame for the problem.

Look here, how pretty the ML110 Gen11 transfers 30 Gbytes data in
full network speed from a PC to the server:

That’s because this switch on the ML110 Gen11 is set:

Now the problem: this server replaces a older HP ML310 Gen8 domain server.
Until the HPE Gen11 series all the HP servers had a hardware RAID storage
controller with battery built in. There were no need to buy a controller separatly.
Since Gen11 HPE delivers the ML110 server only with a INTEL software RAID
solution which needs the write cache enabled.

The point is now: when promoting a member server to a domain controller
(what we need in this case) the Windows Server operating system disables
automatically the write cache. You get an error message “This function is
not supported” back when trying to enable. This is a security measure to
prevent data loss by mains lost.

Here is the same diagram as above with write cache disabled. At first glance
everything looks beautiful:

And then big ooooohhh…

The truth is: this transfer never ends because the server is too busy to serve
the LAN interface.

There are some hints and tricks to inhibit Windows Server 2019 from disabling
the write cache (e.g. in Registry HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Parameters).
But it affects the data security.

My conclusion is therefor: The INTEL’s VROC soft array solution is absolutely in-
servible when a ML110 Gen11 is used as domain controller.

For security reasons I’ve decided to install the hardware solution with:

• Array controller HPE MR408i-i 12G Tri-Mode G11
• Smart storage hybrid capacitor

[roliw]

The missing picture (write cache):