Dual controllers ? One HBA & one RAID

[dhenzler]

I have a DL380e G8 server and just installed a riser board b320i (HBA H200) controller.  The machine came equipped with a 420i RAID controller.

Having 14 drive bays the two 2-1/2" bays make for a perfect RAID Mirror config for boot.  However I'd really like to use the 12 LFF bays for storage using HBA.  I'll be booting FreeNAS or TrueNAS on the system.

I found that I can have both plugged in without interaction, however don't quite know how to go about only servicing the two rear drives with the RAID controller.  I could use them without RAId using the SATA controler.  But would prefer the Mirroring feature.

How are the drive bays separated.  Cable 1 & Cable 2 ?  I really only need 6 of the front LFF bays for HBA  Could I just plug one cable into each of the controllers ?

Know that a dual purpose controller is available.  But probably costs way more than I paid for the server.

Dave - Down East North Carolina

[Harsh_b]

Hello Dhenzler.

I hope this article would help in cabling, if does not then please let me know exact card model (HBA) you wish to use for 6 of the front LFF bays.

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=emr_na-c03425477

Regards

[Harsh_b]

Hello dhenzler, 

Please let us know if you were able to setup the server with desired configuration?

Regards

[dhenzler]

Thanks for touching base... I haven't done anything yet, but will when I have a few hours to give it my full attention.  I'm reading that the b320i can only provide for 8 SAS drives.  This is not consistent with my experience.  Two of my 380e servers are using the "riser" version b320i and both have 12 drives.  Works just fine.  I am a bit hazy on how the two cables service the backplane, and the 2 rear mounted drives for a total of 14 drives.  Does each cable handle up to 8 drives?   Which cable connection would supply service to the two rear drives, and which of the front drives? 

Ideally I would have all dozen of the front LFF drives on SAS, and the two rear drives set for mirroring on a true RAID1 array.  Supporting hot swap.  I'd be using this configuration on FreeNAS.  I think the two SFF 73GB 10K rpm drives would work better than a USB drive for boot, and reboot of FreeNAS.  If I can get this configuration working I would move my production servers over to these two newer DL380eG8's and move the others to my "play room" for trying different things.  They also have 14 bays but are all LFF.

Right now am playing with a DL380pG8 which I have plans to evaluate Nginx reverse proxy web service for my dozen websites.  I'd like all to be SSL and as it stands can only support one on port 443 now.  Am investigating an method using Docker.  This would improve my hack resistance which will be increasingly important in days to come.

Thanks again for your info.  I'll let you know how it's going.

Dave

[mpgido]

dhenzler,

I was wondering if you had any luck with configuring your duel controller setup?  I built a similar TrueNAS Scale setup last year and overcame that issue a little differently.  I have a DL380e G8 with 12 LFF bays in the front and 2 LFF bays in the rear. All 14 drive connect directly to the front backplane and then use two SAS cables to connect to the controller.  It originally came with P420 controller, but everything I read stated that it couldn't be configured as a true HBA, so I removed the P420 and plugged both cables into the dual SAS ports on the riser for the built in B320i and set it up as an HBA.  I used the two rear bays for my bootdisks (two 2.5" SSD in size adapters) and only had enough 3.5" HDD drives for 6 bays up front.  If I remember correctly, I used the B320i interface to set rear bay 13 as primary boot and rear bay 14 as secondary boot, but left everything else unconfigured.  I then went through TrueNAS setup, and during setup, I designated the drive in bay 13 as the boot device for install, and then added the drive in bay 14 to that pool. When you add a 2nd drive to that pool, they are automatically configured as a mirror in ZFS.  I then configured the front drives as a single vdev in RaidZ1 in TrueNAS. This way I have redundance boot drives, already configured to continue booting into TrueNAS if the primary fails.  I have tested the setups redunancy and it seems to work as intended.  Just my two cents.

What caught my eye about your comments was that I have recently had a drive acting up (data pool), and I wanted to add drives and expand the pool, but I was concerned because everything I read says the B320i can only handle 8 drives.  That would mean the 8 drives currently in it are the limit, but I was confused as to why the 2nd SAS cable would also connect to the riser connections for controller.  Before I spend a lot of money on more drives, I just wanted to confirm that you have been able to get all 12-14 bays to properly connect to the two SAS ports extension PCI riser?

Hopefully you have had luck with your setup.

Matthew

[Lyke69]

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@dhenzler wrote: Lite Blue

I have a DL380e G8 server and just installed a riser board b320i (HBA H200) controller.  The machine came equipped with a 420i RAID controller.

Having 14 drive bays the two 2-1/2" bays make for a perfect RAID Mirror config for boot.  However I'd really like to use the 12 LFF bays for storage using HBA.  I'll be booting FreeNAS or TrueNAS on the system.

I found that I can have both plugged in without interaction, however don't quite know how to go about only servicing the two rear drives with the RAID controller.  I could use them without RAId using the SATA controler.  But would prefer the Mirroring feature.

How are the drive bays separated.  Cable 1 & Cable 2 ?  I really only need 6 of the front LFF bays for HBA  Could I just plug one cable into each of the controllers ?

Know that a dual purpose controller is available.  But probably costs way more than I paid for the server.

Dave - Down East North Carolina

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The cache module connector does not use the industry-standard DDR3 mini-DIMMs. Do not use the controller with cache modules designed for other controller models, because the controller can malfunction and you can lose data. Also, do not transfer this cache module to an unsupported controller model, because you can lose data.