Questions about the Proliant DL line of servers

[RobertMcHenry]

First I'd like to say that this is a fantastic forum! Lots of fine people willing to help other! I'm glad I ran across this site.

I have worked 15+ years at the help desk for a rather large insurance provider located in the Northeast. Been working the hardware/software support side since the PC XT days!

Recently joined the Microsoft Action Pack program to get some real hands-on experience with some of the newer server O/S's. Company I work for is in the process of upgrading all servers to G5 & G6 Proliants. I have access to a large number of G1 thru G3 servers with a few G4's that are still on the production line.

I found out rather quickly that I'm not going to be running any 64 bit OS on G3 or less. I was able to acquire a G4 thru Ebay but found out after the fact that I can't use any of the Hyper-V software due to the G4 Xenon's not supporting HV.

I have my eye on a DL380 G5 w/o any drives. I was wondering if I could purchase drive caddy's at $13/pop and install WD 3.5 Terabyte AV drives. Drives are running currently running $69.00. Do the drives need a certain firmware for the Proliant controllers to "talk" to the drives?

Again, I'm doing this all out of my own pocket. I don't have an IT budget for all this self training. Also, Currently running a Proliant DL380G4 with 6 36.4 15K drives in a server rack in the basement 24/7. Will my wife go thru the ceiling when she opens the next electric bill? LOL

One last question, I'd like to play with the Lightsout and have it configured wwith IP 192.168.1.202, I have BOTH NICS on the backside connected to the switch BUT I can't see/ping the IP. I also ran across a thread that stated one needed licensed SW to use the Lightsout features.

Thanks all

[Torsten.]

many questions!


Third party drives may work or not - nobody can say for sure. It unsupported of course.

Regarding iLO: some features are licensed, but it basically works without. Did you connect a cable to the iLO port?

[Johan Guldmyr]

Is your workstation/client on 192.168.1.0 network as well?

Does the iLO interface have link? Maybe it's a switch setting?

As for the disk drives, you may be able to find HP equivalent drives, but the few times I've seen it the model numbers have been 'right/supported' but the firmware was not an HP branded one.

[RobertMcHenry]

I have both ports connected to the switch and I also have ipaddresses from the DHCP on each port..... I bulb just lit..... I set the IP manually via setup at boot to 192.168.1.202 but I believe I have a different IP address from the DHCP server. Hmmm, I'll have to dig into it deeper this weekend. Thanks for the replies so far.

As far as the drives I guess I'll purchase just two P experiment. I'll post my findings in this thread.

Thanks again

[Torsten.]

Normally you have 2 normal NICs + 1 iLO = 3 network ports.

[RobertMcHenry]

Only see two NICS on the backside of that DL380 G4. I'll dig into it deeper this weekend.

[Torsten.]

There are 2 NICs, but the ILO is above the USB ports!

[RobertMcHenry]

Thanks I'll take a closer look this evening.

[RobertMcHenry]

Oh yeah, their it is as plain as day! Just above the USB ports! I spotted the two NICS & was not expecing to see a third when I was racking it.

Thanks for the info.