HP Proliant DL160 G5 RAID

[dhicks]

Hello All,

 

We have an HP Proliant DL160 G5 server - a 1U rack-mount case with four 3.5" drive caddies. We've just tried it out with four 2TB drives in RAID 10 configuration. The RAID 10 array is reported as being 2TB total in size - the RAID controller is only using 1TB of each disk. Is there any way to convince the DL160's RAID controller to use all of the available disk space (can we upgrade the BIOS?) or are we stuck with 1TB per drive?

 

Also, what would be better: four drives in RAID-10 or two RAID-1 arrays, one for the OS and one for the data (which, in this case, is going to be a bunch of VM disk images, so I'd think pretty much the same disk access patterns as the OS partition anyway)?

 

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David Hicks

[dhicks]

Is there any way to convince the DL160's RAID controller to use all of the available disk space (can we upgrade the BIOS?) or are we stuck with 1TB per drive?

 

Has anyone done a BIOS update on one of machines - is it straightforward enough? Does an update to the system's BIOS also update the RAID controller?

 

--

David Hicks

[SYNACK]

BIOS updates on HP servers are usually easy and done inside the OS, if it does not have an integrated SmartArray controller then yes the BIOS is likely to be your best bet at getting a firmware upgrade to the RAID controller.

 

I would probably use a RAID1+0 set as it allows for distributing more than 2GB to one or the other if required making it more flexible. Speed wise it may be a little faster (but not hugely with the integrated controller) and redundancy wise it remains the same.

[SYNACK]

Strike that, it looks to have a SmartArray e200 in it, there is no firmware updates listed for it under the server page but there is one for the standalone controller here HP Smart Array E200 Controller -  Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center

It may update the controller even through it is integrated, the latest firmware version is 1.86B, you can check your version when the system strats up as it shows at the end of the SmartArray configure bit that flashes past during startup.

 

It may not actually support it though as from the spec sheet HP Smart Array E200 Controller -  HP Smart Array E200 Controller - Overview - c00715136 - HP Business Support Center has this line in it

Support for up to 2 TB in a single logical drive

which may preclude the RAID 1+0 setup at any rate.

 

If it was me I'd look at trying the online firmware flash from above or downloading the firmware update CD and just letting it upgrade what it sees fit. The software should not upgrade it if it is going to break it.