iSteve Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 Hello, We're updating a backup server here. We have a Dl180 G5 which has 3x 3TB drives running from the built in SATA controller. All working fine. The server has a Smart Array E200 card running the other 4 drive bays, which only allows you to create the usual ~800GB volume from a 3TB drive. I have updated the firmware to 1.86 on the card, to no avail. Does anyone know if there is any later firmware for the E200 to allow use of 3TB on a single drive? If not, can anyone suggest a controller card to replace the E200 which will allow use of 3TB drives. We are not running RAID on the card, just single drives. Thanks.
SYNACK Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 (edited) Is it set to use AHCI and are you using the ACU to do the config. Can you make the drives larger if they are in a RAID? Also does the server have the latest BIOS flashed? Edited June 6, 2012 by SYNACK
glennda Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 This page will give you the latest firmware versions - there appears to be a few critical updates for those machines. I seem to remember one firmware version reporting drives as failed even though they hadn't. Toby
iSteve Posted June 6, 2012 Author Posted June 6, 2012 (edited) SYNACK - The server has the latest BIOS as of last week. The 3 drives on the on board/ built in controller show as 3TB and are in use as such in Windows. The BIOS is not set to AHCI as this causes Windows to die on boot. I used the F8 option to 'configure' the drive on the E200. The only options available are to make a logical volume, view one, or delete one. I understand I can make a RAID volume of 3TB plus, but ideally I want to use 3TB single drives. GLENNDA - Thanks for the link. The BIOS is at the latest, and the machine is not running any of those P series storage controllers listed on the page. Edited June 6, 2012 by iSteve
SYNACK Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 The AHCI bit may be your issue, what version of Windows server is it, do you need to add the appropriate drivers during install or add them then sysprep it and change the bios setting to get it to use drivers that won't kill it on startup. I'm assuming Server 2003 if it chokes on AHCI.
Michael Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 It sounds like a limitation of the RAID controller. Maybe the only way to get 3TB would be 4 x 1TB drives in RAID5. Of course you lose 1TB for parity, leaving 3TB (slightly less after formatting). Still, if you're only able to create a single 800GB RAID array, I can't see how you could get 3TB of available space.
iSteve Posted June 6, 2012 Author Posted June 6, 2012 SYNACK - It's 2008 r2 64bit, which boots from a 160GB drive. The BIOS sees and works with the 3TB drives on the onboard controller, therefore does the issue not lie with the E200 controller and firmware on that? If AHCI was the problem would it not have problems working with the drives on the onboard controller? MICHAEL - The E200 supports up to 2TB per drive, but with a 3TB it only sees 800GB (there's geek explanations online about this limitation across a variety of hardware). I had, wrongly, assumed that if the vanilla onboard controller on a cheap server could work with large drives, the E200 would be upgradable to cope too. Seems I am wrong! Can anyone advise on a suitable HP controller that would work? I'm not too familiar with options for the DL180 series in the current market. Thanks again for your help so far. I guess as everything is as up to date as it goes, replacing this controller is the only option to get full use from the drives.
Michael Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 I suspect it could be something to do with the hard drive platters 3 x 800GB = 3200GB or the way it's manufactured. Hence why the RAID controller cannot see all of it. Silly question, but if you knew the E200 supports upto 2TB per drive, why purchase a 3TB drive? The only alternative is buy another RAID card or I suppose you could use software RAID, built in Windows. This should be able to see/use any size.
SYNACK Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 Yeap, makes sence, just exploring all options. The 3TB drives will use a bigger cluster size (4k) so for reasonable performance the whole low level subsystem on the RAID card may need to be rewritten hence the delay/lack of support. As larger drives become more common in enterprise they may get around to updating it but its by no means a certainty. Its weird though as the spec seems to think it should work, at least for some drives: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12460_na/12460_na.html If you are going to be using them as individual drives then you are probably better off with a less smart card as all the offloading of tasks would be wasted short of the cache. If you are addind/removing them a bit the lesser card may also be less hassle.
Michael Posted June 6, 2012 Posted June 6, 2012 Looking at the specs, I would agree with Synack that it should work, but clearly it's picky with what hard drives it supports. Plus it does support SAS and SATA, but only SATA 150. If those hard drives are SATA 600, you're going to take a massive performance hit. You're definitely better off replacing the RAID controller.
iSteve Posted June 6, 2012 Author Posted June 6, 2012 The machine was maxed with 2TB drives and we were upping capacity on the cheap. Like I say I had assumed that as the onboard controller just worked, an add on controller would cope or be flashable. Anyway it's not a problem. I will see if we can look in to getting a different controller.
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