DL380 G5 - Can I install more than one P400 array controller?

[Jean Griffith]

I have been asked to set up my DL380 G5 Performance server with 8 internal SAS 146 Gb disks configured as 4 separate RAID 1 arrays.

As I understand it, I can only create 2 separate arrays using the P400 controller that ships with the server.

Can I install a second P400 array contoller and create 2 further arrays using the internal disks?

If not, what is the best way to achieve this configuration?

Many thanks, Jean

[Jon Paul]

Hi Jean,

No need to buy anything else. The P400 will support up to 32 Logical drives.
Using Array Configuration Utility (ACU) you can create 4 seperate Virtual Arrays. Then allocate the entire or just a portion of the array as a RAID 1 logical drive. While this meets your needs as stated, it may not be the best performance configuration. You are limited by single disk performance (with a slight hit for writing the mirror data).
Possibly a better performing configuration is: 2 drive RAID 1 Array/logical drive for your OS (This is the standard for Storage Servers) then a 6 drive array with 3 RAID 1+0 logical drives. In this case, you are sharing the pyhsical drives across your different logical drives but each logical has ths advantage of using 6 spindles instead of 2.
You would have to test this out (use IOMeter, www.iometer.org. Or IOZone, www.iozone.org, or your benchmark of choice)
Bear in mind that if a drive goes bad, all logical drives will be non-optimal in this configuration.
Hope this helps,
JP