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i just bought lot of HP DL180 G6 Servers,

it's using HP P410 RAID Card,

i plugged 12 x 2TB SAS Drives + 2 x 73GB SAS (for OS - RAID1)

all drives showing up IN RAID Creating array page,

so i just created RAID1 Array for 2x73Gb to install OS (Centos 6)

OS installed fine,

but i can't detect the rest of unassigned drives (that's not in RAID Arrays)

so my Q. is :

is there any way to make unassigned drives showing up in OS (without creating raid array for them) ?

i don't want to create RAID arrays for them, i just want them showing up like all Dell servers i have,

if i change RAID Card Mode to HBA, is that help ?

any advices ?

Thanks

A.G
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2 Answers2

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is there any way to make unassigned drives showing up in OS (without creating raid array for them) ?

No, they have to be presented to the BIOS as virtual drives of some sort or another. Just create single disk R0 arrays with one logical disk each.

Chopper3
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  • Thanks Chopper, but are you sure ?! in my dell servers unassigned drives is showing up as well ! – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 11:30
  • I'd guess this as well. The watered down LSI cards you get in IBM xServies servers are the same. The downside is when you have to swap a disk, you need to delete the single-disk R0 "array", then create a new one for the replacement disk. – ThatGraemeGuy Sep 13 '13 at 12:27
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    @A.G - HP SmartArray controllers are great, I love them and buy nothing but them - but they don't act like dumb controllers - it's worth the learning curve though. – Chopper3 Sep 13 '13 at 13:29
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The Smart Array P410 (and all Smart Array controllers) are RAID devices only. There's no HBA or pass-through mode.

What are you attempting to do? Are you installing something like ZFS or Windows Storage Spaces where you want to pass full disks to the operating system to be managed?

If so, creating a bunch of RAID 0 single-disk logical drives is the wrong choice!

If you do this, you will lose hot-swap ability during a drive failure. If a disk fails, that RAID 0 logical drive fails and won't be rescanned by your operating system without a reboot or Smart Array reconfiguration. A dedicated HBA is a better choice, depending on what you're doing...

See: ZFS SAS/SATA controller recommendations

Disabling RAID feature on HP Smart Array P400

Solaris: detect hotswap SATA disk insert

MegaRAID JBOD substitute

Community
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ewwhite
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  • Thanks ewwhite, because that i can't use RAID0 , it's bad Idea, i think HP p410 support HBA mode, so if i change the mode to HBA can help ? i'm using this server for storage - i have more than 100 x Servers of Dells all of them showing up unassigned drives once OS Booted - i'm planing to replace RAID card to LSI RAiD, any advices ? – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 12:08
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    @A.G There's no HBA mode for the Smart Array controller. What operating system are you using? – ewwhite Sep 13 '13 at 12:12
  • i'm using Centos 6 -64Bit , for HBA mode please take a look : http://viktorbalogh.net/blog/hardware/servers/changing-a-p410i-from-hba-mode-to-raid-mode - in Dell Servers i'm using LSI2008 Raid Card - all unassigned drives detected by OS as well , – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 12:19
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    @A.G That's only for the [HP-UX operating system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX). You can't do this on ProLiant servers. – ewwhite Sep 13 '13 at 12:22
  • really thanks ewwhite, - so i have to replace the RAID card ? is there any RAID card HP branded can show up unassigned drives ? i'm realy feel sad for the servers – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 12:27
  • Yes. The HP-branded cards are just rebranded LSI devices. I'd get an LSI-9211-4i or 9211-8i in your case. You can also *try* an [HP H220](http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/adapters/h220/index.html). – ewwhite Sep 13 '13 at 12:40
  • this was very helpful info :) -- there is 14 bays in my server - i need to use RAID1 with only 2 Drives (for OS) the rest of drives i need it them as unassigned drives - so HP H220 not support RAID, i'm interesting in LSI-9211-4i , but are you sure it's will show up unassigned drives ? because i'll buy High Qty. because i have 4 racks contain HP DL180 Servers -- Wooooooow - you was facing same issue before : - http://serverfault.com/questions/84043/zfs-sas-sata-controller-recommendations – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 12:55
  • You may want to look into the 9211-8i... but it depends on your internal connections. Please test this first before making a decision on all of your systems. – ewwhite Sep 13 '13 at 13:01
  • Thanks ewwhite, can you confirm please if 9211-8i support 14 Drives ? - note : i'll use only one SFF-8087 cable because my backplane had only one port for 14 bays + the HDD is 4TB SAS NL 7.2K Seagate, is it supported ?,, please advice – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 14:46
  • Either the 4i or 8i will work because the expander is on your server's backplane. – ewwhite Sep 13 '13 at 14:47
  • Great, what about 4TB SAS NL 7.2K Seagate, is it supported also ? – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 14:50
  • @A.G You will need to research that on your own. – ewwhite Sep 13 '13 at 14:54
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    God bless you, you don't know how much you are helped me, Thaaaaaaaanks man - take care , if there is any way to send me PM please do that, again thanks ewwhite – A.G Sep 13 '13 at 14:58