Cannot configure SmartArray e208I-P SR GEN10 on HP MicroServer GEN10

[Jimmy Vance]

Now that I'm back in the office, I was finally able to get ahold of a Gen10 Microserver.

You can indeed setup the RAID controller using UEFI mode with offline SSA and the e208i controller using the latest versions of the AMI ROM and Smart Array firmware.

The versions I've tested with are 

ROM ZA10A360 and firmware versions 1.65 and 2.62.

I can understand your frustrations, this process needs to be documented much better.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, from the AMI UEFI Setup screen, even though the controller is listed, you cannot access any of the configuration options from this menu.  I'll assume this is due to the fact this system uses an AMI ROM and not a HPE ProLiant ROM. Systems with ProLiant ROM you can access these options. I'll report this back to the Microserver team so they can address the issue.

To configure the controller, you need to use the Offline SSA utility.  Today I used both v3.30 and v4.15 of offline SSA

With the system in UEFI mode, boot from the USB key that has had the contents of the ISO image copied to it.

Offline SSA is a Linux based boot environment, unfortunately the kernel version in the tool has KMS issues with the AMD video in the Microserver Gen10,  If you were going to load a Linux OS with a GUI, you'd have the same issue. To load a Linux OS you will also need to add an option to the bootline. I was using 'nomodeset', but as I discovered with Offline SSA versions 3.40 and newer, the boot option 'modprobe.blacklist=amdgpu' has been added to address this.

Working combination

Microserver Gen10 with E208i in UEFI mode

System ROM ZA10A360
e208i Firmware v2.62
Offline SSA version 3.40 or later

Copy the contents of the SSA ISO image to a USB key to boot.
When booting form the USB Key select "USB Boot: Smart Storage Administrator" or "USB Boot: Smart Storage Administrator CLI"

You can then configure the RAID and controller settings

If your going to run in Legacy BIOS mode, you will need to set the system to UEFI mode to run the utility or custom build a bootable USB key to boot via MBR. you can use one of the older versions that support BIOS/UEFI boot as a guide on how to add syslinux boot options

If using legacy boot mode, you will need to Set Bootable Logical Drive/Volume (this isn't required for UEFI boot) under controller configuration

I did not try setting the controller to balanced power mode, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, this causes issues. Once again, I'm assuming this is due to the AMI ROM not being fully compatible with ProLiant ROM features

Hope this helps

[mprenter]

e208i Firmware v2.62 no longer available by HPE