ML350 Gen9 P440 Expansion

[Jocko96b]

Scenario:

I have a ML350 Gen 9 with a embedded 440ar raid controller connected to a single cage with 8 drives.  Running ESXi 6.5 .  Works great, no issues. 

Trying to expand the hard drive capacity by installing two additional cages.  P440 Raid Controller and Expander purchased, along with the two additional bays and HDDs.

Problem:

When I install the P440 + expander, the Intelligent Provisioning Smart Storage Administrator does not see the controller:

• When the 440ar + P440 is installed, it only sees the 440ar. 
• With 440ar removed, it sees no raid controller cards.

Details:

• P440 P/N: 726821-B21
• SAS Expander Card P/N: 727250-B21
• Hard Drive Bay P/N: 778157-B21

Side question: Can I continue to use the 440ar controller with the original cage, then install the P440 with expander to control the two new cages, mounting them as additional datastores in VMWare?

[Torsten.]

check this:

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=mmr_kc-0124148

[Jocko96b]

If I am reading that correctly, I need to jettison the 440ar, which is fine.

However, when I remove it, the newly installed P440 isn't detected.

Also, I forgot toention that I have tried both PCI slots 1 and 3 with the controller, the expansion card in slot 2

[Torsten.]

According to the document try slots 2 and 4 for controller and expander.

[Jocko96b]

No joy.

We removed the 440ar and we get thrown into a boot loop, going through POST.  Is there a chance we need to get a BIOS update to get this working?

[Torsten.]

Maybe.

What version is installed?

currently the latest is 2.52:

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_22a1272833584a73b6868d93da#tab5

[Jocko96b · Accepted solution]

We have an ancient BIOS version (V1.21 11/03/2014) and of course we don't have support purchased to be able to download a updated version.

However, we took our brand new P440 controller and threw it into a HP Z800 tower with Win 10 just to see if it can see it.  Windows Device Manager could actually see it but couldn't intialize it. Device properties it was saying there are some I/O Errors...so we are chalking this up as a bad card...

Thank you for all the help, and hopefully a replacement card will solve all of my problems ;)

[Torsten.]

watch out for the next bios update, you will be able to download it. it is "critical" and " for free".