ProLiant DL385 Gen10 plus - PCI spliting / bifurcate

[pawele]

hi everyone.

I am looking at and contemplate a purhcase of these servers and I wonder if are is "PCI split / bifurcate" support from this model(or any HPE servers, I've never owned one).

I'm reading user tech docs but I fail to find clear info on this. Can anybody clarify 100% this server model does support PCIe 'bifurcate' ?

many thanks, Pawel.

[AmRa]

Hi Pawel,

Yes, PCIe bifurcation options is available in DL385 Gen10 server, Please follow the below procedure to configure PCIe bifurcation.

Configuring PCIe bifurcation options:

Procedure
1. From the System Utilities screen, select System Configuration > BIOS/Platform Configuration (RBSU) > PCIe
Device Configuration > Advanced PCIe Configuration > PCIe Bifurcation Options.
2. Select the bifurcation option for each PCIe slot.
• Auto
• Bifurcate
• Dual Bifurcate
3. Save your settings.

[krisd443]

@AmRa 

I'm looking at the RBSU on one of our Gen10 DL385s now. There is no dual bifurcation option, only auto or bifurcate. Is there a way to fix this? Hovering over the bifurcation options mentions dual bifurcation but the dropdowns do not.

[Codeangels]

Hi OCCASIONAL ADVISOR,

Did you find out more about bifurcate and if it works? I am considering DL385 Gen10 (not plus) and need to bifurcate in order to add M2 NVME drives.

Thanks

[AmRa]

Hi

Please access BIOS/Platform configuration from intelligent provisioning and check for dual bifurcation option.

To access intelligent provisioning press F10 during POST.

[Titan_Systems]

I am also trying to figure this out.  I am putting an Asus Hyper card in, however, I still do not have the option of Dual in either straight bios setup or Intelligent Provisioning.  This is a brand new unit, which came with a March 2020 bios.

[miles267]

Hi - I have the same HPE Gen10 Plus system with the same March 2020 bios version.  How do I enable Dual mode?  It's currently not available.  Thanks.

[SanjeevGoyal]

Hello,

Please follow the below steps.

ProLiant DL385 Gen10 plus - PCI spliting / bifurcate

1. From the System Utilities screen, select System Configuration > BIOS/Platform Configuration (RBSU) > PCIe. Device Configuration > Advanced PCIe Configuration > PCIe Bifurcation Options.
2. Select the bifurcation option for each PCIe slot. • Auto. ...
3. Save your settings.

   If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   

   Regards,

[miles267]

The DL385 Gen10 Plus BIOS bifurcate settings references Auto, Bifurcate and Dual options when you mouse-over the setting in BIOS, however the Dual option isn't available from the drop-down selection as it is in the Gen10.  Please update the Gen10 Plus BIOS to offer the Dual and even Quad bifurcate options.  Have not been able to get bifurcate to work as expected in Gen10 Plus using more than one storage device on a PCIe card yet.

[kondor]

In my 385 Gen10 Plus I have noticed that when I use PCIe card for 4 NVMe M.2 drives there's no way they can be seen as 4 separate drives when put in x16 slot (slot 2) with bifurcation enabled. System presents only one drive for the OS. The best result so far I could achieve by puting the card (Asrock Quad) in one of the x8 slots (1 or 3). I can see two drives then and it doesn't matter if the biffurcation is enabled or left with Auto option. I assume to make it work there has to be a bios feature for quad bifurcation, although there's something wrong with the x16 slot. In the system information I can see Slot 1 and 3 being of width x8 with negotiated link of x16, but Slot 2 (actual x16) shows as width x16 and negotiated link of x2 or x4 depending if the bifurcation is enabled or left with auto in the bios settings.

[kondor]

As it it stated in the manual for the bios settings, what the current biffurcation does is simply split the slot in two. So it will make x4x4 out of x8 slot, but it will make x8x8 from x16 slot. I think we need to wait for the bios update that will give an option to make x16 slot to be split into x4x4x4x4 (quad biffurcation?)

[2twisty]

Has there been any progress on this?  I know that the DL380 Gen 10 Plus (Intel based) got a bios update that allows Dual Bifurcation, but I have not seen anything yet for the DL385 Gen10 Plus.

I am resorting to adding the 3rd riser card to our server so that I can access all the NVMe Storage that we purchased.  But that fully populates the server and I'd like to have the dual option so that I have some room for expansion later.

[kondor]

I'm monitoring the situation and HPE is aware of the problem. They claimed to solve the problem with the next BIOS update about to be relased 2020. Here is more information about it:

You can find more about it here:

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=a00105130en_us&docLocale=en_US

[kondor]

@2twisty 

I have good news for you. Check this out. HPE released the BIOS update today:

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_c530466269d14674bdca97394e#tab4