What do I need to order to add a second SFF drive cage to a DL380 G6?

[Mike Dross]

I have a DL380G6, part number 491316-001. It has the P410 controller card and has the standard 8 drive bays. I want to expand and install the additional 8 drive bays (total 16). What do I need to order (part numbers)? Will the P410 support 16 drives?

Thanks for any assistance.

Regards,

Mike

[Kranti Mahmud]

Hi Mike,

HP Proliant DL 380 G6 server has the following three storage controller as:

Entry Models HP Smart Array P410i/Zero Memory Controller (RAID 0/1/1+0)

Base Models HP Smart Array P410i/256 MB Controller (RAID 0/1/1+0/5/5+0)

Performance Models HP Smart Array P410i/512 MB BBWC Controller (RAID 0/1/1+0/5/5+0)

First of all let me know, which controller U have (which can easily find from the POST screen)?


Secondly, chaeck the service manual of adding additional SEF HDD cage at:
http://www.business-it.ch/shop/img/documents/c01705597.pdf

Rgds-Kranti

[Mike Dross]

Thanks for the quick response.

I have the Performance Models HP Smart Array P410i/512 MB BBWC Controller (RAID 0/1/1+0/5/5+0)

Does that help? Will this Smart Array support 16 drives?

Thanks,

Mike

[TTr]

In order to connect the 410i to the second cage you will need the SAS expander card.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/arraycontrollers/sas-expander/index.html
It connects the 2 connectors from the 410i to the 4 connectors of the two cages. All 16 drives will be controlled by the 410i.

For better performance you should consider getting another P410 and use that for the second cage only.

It really depends what you are looking for by adding the second driver cage.

[Steve Reece_3]

If it's anything like the other operating systems and raid cards, you'd be better off using the existing card or buying an additional one with BBWC. The disk subsystems on these systems can be quite slow without write cache.

Steve