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I recently purchased 2 HP Proliant DL380 G6 servers for the purpose of virtulization; each will be a new host in our VMware environment. I know that I will get heat for this, but I do not want to use any RAID. We have our own method of redundancy, so I am not looking for a lecture on why I need RAID. I just need to know if it is possible for the servers to see each disk individually.

The units shipped with the HP Smart Array P410i/Zero Memory Controller and I am assuming this is what is causing the new SAS drives to have poor performance.

So is this possible to disable in the BIOS? Or will I need to purchase an HP Smart Array that has memory?

ewwhite
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Schoney1
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    You may do better if you explain the method of redundancy your firm implements. Otherwise, you'll draw responses that say, "*use RAID*". – ewwhite Feb 26 '15 at 22:10

1 Answers1

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No.

This is not possible.

The HP ProLiant DL380 G6 isn't a new server, though. It's three generations removed. If you're trying to use this for vSAN, don't. If it's any other situation where you need access to the RAW disk devices, you should purchase a dedicated SAS HBA from LSI or an HP-branded LSI controller. This can then be connected to the backplane and is compatible with VMware.

Same rules for ZFS, Hadoop, Storage Spaces, vSAN, etc.

I'm really curious about what you're doing, though.

If spinning disk performance is an issue, you really do need a Flash-backed Write Cache module and RAM for the RAID controller. Can you explain your problem in more detail?

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ewwhite
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    +1 for hadoop. We fell into this "trap" being over eager to use our old hardware for a hadoop cluster only to find out we couldnt. – Reaces Feb 26 '15 at 22:20
  • I am not using a vSAN. I have several other ESXi hosts that I built myself which have several directly connected disks used for datastores. I then use Veeam to replicate my VMs regularly to other hosts for redundancy. It all comes down to money and I have been using my own system for several years now and its worked fine for my needs. – Schoney1 Feb 27 '15 at 02:47
  • I bought the HP servers because they are compatible with the latest version of ESXi. I just need the disks to be used as they are in my current hosts, as standalone disks without any RAID. If I decide to use RAID, I might as well purchase a shared storage solution and use Vmotion. Just trying to keep the cost down here. Does that make sense? – Schoney1 Feb 27 '15 at 02:48
  • No, it does not make sense. How are the disks presently configured? – ewwhite Feb 27 '15 at 05:38
  • RAID doesn't automatically mean redundancy... you can use RAID0 if it's just a don't have mlney to buy disks issue... – Simo Kivistö Feb 27 '15 at 11:42
  • I have the disks using RAID 0 for now but the performance is terrible. I am guessing its because of the HP Smart Array P410i/Zero Memory Controller and having a controller with memory will speed things up. I am willing to spend more money for one if I am 100% sure that will help. – Schoney1 Feb 27 '15 at 14:56
  • Why are the disks in RAID 0? Are you avoiding RAID because you don't have enough disks? Either way, [having a BBWC or FBWC cache unit will help](http://serverfault.com/questions/221541/incredibly-low-disk-performance-on-hp-proliant-dl385-g7/221553#221553). – ewwhite Feb 27 '15 at 15:00