RAID controller advice

[Guest Guest]

I have a HPE ML110 G9 which I use for a home lab and run HyperV 2016. However I'd like to have a play around with VMWare, it has a B140i RAID controller (the integrated controller) and the performance under VMWare is poor. I spoke with HPE about this and the controller isn't supported under VMWare.

 

I'd like to install a proper hardware RAID controller however I don't want to spend kind of money it'd cost for a HPE supported controller just for a home lab.

 

Has anyone successfully installed a third-party controller in a HPE server?

Does anyone know of any controllers which are known to work in HPE gen9 servers?

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated

[ICTDirect_Dave]

You could buy a slightly older, but much better controller like the Smart Array P420.

 

Something like that for one of your Full Height PCIe x8 slots with 1GB Flash-Backed Write cache is around £75 ex vat

[Guest Guest]

Thanks for that I've found some pretty good deals. However that card only seems to support SATA 3gbps; do you know of any older cards which support 6gbps?

 

thanks again

[Norphy]

Thanks for that I've found some pretty good deals. However that card only seems to support SATA 3gbps; do you know of any older cards which support 6gbps?

 

thanks again

 

Unless you're using SSDs, I wouldn't worry about the speed difference between 3gbps and 6gbps. Even now, a 7200rpm hard drive would struggle to saturate a 3gbps connection.

[Guest Guest]

I am using SSDs. It's a little confusing as HP's spec states that only sata 3gbps is supported however there are multiple sites stating state sata 6gbps is

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Yeah the SATA speed on a P420 is definitely 6GB. It's the HP Gen8 top end raid controller!

[Guest Guest]

Thanks for that, just managed to get a P420 with 1Gb cache for £69 inc VAT have to wait for it to arrive from hong kong though

[ICTDirect_Dave]

That's a good deal!

 

You should see some decent performance gains

[PotNoodleTech]

Thanks for that, just managed to get a P420 with 1Gb cache for £69 inc VAT have to wait for it to arrive from hong kong though

 

Hope you manage to avoid import duty on that!