Non-stop disk activity and Smart Array P222 controller in HP Proliant Gen 8 DL 320e Gen8 Server

[Alilou2955]

Hi,

We bought a server "HP ProLiant DL320e Gen8 V2" with 2 hard drives. We also bought a card "Dynamic HP Smart Array P222 Controler (512MB, v6.00) 1 logical drive" to make these drives in RAID-1. We currently have a problem with the RAID configuration.

- Before installing the card, the disks are working correctly, but after installing this RAID card, hard drives LEDs do not stop rotating (green), indicating a non-stop disk activity (see picture 1).

- In BIOS, the card is detected (see figure 2 below)

- But we can not activate it. It offers no submenu to set it to "Enable" (see figure 3 below).

- We thought that perhaps it might be necessary to update the firmware of the server and the controller board. When I put the firmware update using "Intelligent Provisioning", the latter returned directly to its start page without installing the firmware software it has downloaded. It does not propose to click on the "install" button (see figure 4 below)

For information, the software "Intelligent Provisioning" shows that the RAID is installed and configured (see figure 5 bellow and attached).

[Jimmy Vance]

The server ships with the embedded B120i Dynamic RAID controller, that is what appears in RBSU. The P222 will show as a PCI device, but won't have any settings in RBSU.

The "P" series HP Smart Array controllers scan the disk drive media during idle time and repair, or report, any media defects detected.

[Alilou2955]

Hi, Thanks for your answer.

OK, but P222 scans the drives continuesly. It doesn't stop. The server is empty, it's new and we have just installed the OS. it has no other data.

[Alilou2955]

I want to know also why in this Youtube video "How to Setup Dynamic Smart Array controllers for Windows [CCEN]" the author can change, in the BIOS, the stat of "Enable Dynamic HP Smart Array B120i RAID Support" from "Disable" to "Enable". (See the video between 0:50 and 1:20 (1min 20s)), which is not possible in my case !

[Jimmy Vance]

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Alilou2955 wrote:

I want to know also why in this Youtube video "How to Setup Dynamic Smart Array controllers for Windows [CCEN]" the author can change, in the BIOS, the stat of "Enable Dynamic HP Smart Array B120i RAID Support" from "Disable" to "Enable". (See the video between 0:50 and 1:20 (1min 20s)), which is not possible in my case !

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That section of the video he is talking about the B320i controller in a DL360. The B120i doesn't have the same exact options in your server.  Under PCI devices you can enable/disable the controller but there really isn't any need to, just set the boot controller order of the P222 before the B120i

[Alilou2955]

Hello.
Thank you for your answer.
Otherwise I have resolved the problem. There was a conflict between the 2 controllers, because the RAID was created before adding the P222 controller.
I have destroyed the RAID and re-created it by affecting/using the P222.
LEDs on the disks have stopped turning.

Today I have installed the OS (an ESXi 5.5) on this server. Since this morning LED disks turn (over than 4 hours). Do you think this is normal ?