7

I have a HP Proliant DL380 G7 with said array controller and 6 INTEL SSDSC2KW4's, set up in Raid 5.

Normally I have never had problems with SATA drives in servers, but this one has me baffled.

I have installed ESXi 6 on it, and this usually goes quite OK. Sometimes i get to install a couple of virtual computers, but suddenly it tells me that the Drive status has failed (to a variable amount of disks), and the array has gone offline. I can go, take the disk out, and put it in again, and it works fine.

This usually happens when i transfer some GB of data to it. If it has ex. a router running that does not write much to the SSD's, it can be stable for over 20 days without caring to much.

Anyone experienced anything like this? Or on general basis have some tips on how to proceed?

Bjørn
  • 266
  • 2
  • 6
  • 10

2 Answers2

9

You're not supposed to do this.

The HP Smart Array P410i RAID controller is not compatible with every SSD. You can't just toss some consumer drives into the server and expect them to work. HP protects/guards against that by restricting third-party drive use in their servers.

The drives have NOT failed, but they definitely are not meant to be used with that controller.

Reasons why:

HP Proliant G6 reporting failed SSD drive - alternative strategies for monitoring?

HP P410 RAID + Samsung 830 SSDs + Debian 6.0 - What performance to expect?

Samsung 850 EVO + HP P410 limited iops?

Can I Use a Normal SSD disk in HP DL380 G6

HP Proliant DL360 G6 Wont Detect SSD

Community
  • 1
ewwhite
  • 194,921
  • 91
  • 434
  • 799
  • Ok. I see that you have said that many disks don't work, but i am struggeling to find out which disks that would work. And the disks I have put together is recognized by the system, and can be used to a certain degree. Is there any hope towards my case, firmware that can be installed++ or have i just bought 6 SSD drives that are useless with this particular Raid? I have checked HP's download section and they have 20+ firmwares for SATA drives for instance. – Bjørn Oct 02 '16 at 13:50
  • I'd recommend HP-branded SATA SSDs meant for G7 servers. They're usually Intel and available on eBay. The other option is to use PCIe-based NVMe cards from Intel. The Intel 750 is great and will far outperform anything sitting behind a P410i. Otherwise, there's no nice option for you. – ewwhite Oct 02 '16 at 13:53
  • 1
    As a general rule, any drives that are "green" typically do not work in these applications unless they come specifically from the vendor for that controller. Green drives turn themselves off automatically and drop out, and the controller won't tolerate the time it takes for them to bring themselves back online when polled. Getting certified drives is the safest bet, and those are typically high quality drives anyways. – Spooler Oct 02 '16 at 14:01
  • @SmallLoanOf1M What do you mean by "Green drives"? – Bjørn Oct 02 '16 at 14:17
  • 1
    @BjørnØyvindHalvorsen ignore that. It's not relevant to your situation. – ewwhite Oct 02 '16 at 14:18
  • 1
    @BjørnØyvindHalvorsen "Green" here means "energy-saving" or "environmentally friendly". – user253751 Oct 02 '16 at 19:48
  • @immibis: The reason i asked was because i did not see why the sentence was relevant to my question. I am aware of the green label on wd's disk for instance.. – Bjørn Oct 03 '16 at 07:36
  • @BjørnØyvindHalvorsen It is relevant to the general concept of "not every RAID controller works with every drive, even if the drive works when not part of a RAID" – user253751 Oct 03 '16 at 23:03
1

I have a pair of DL380 G6's for home labs and am fed up with HP's requirement of HP-branded drives only. In server #1 are 2 system drives and QTY 14, 4TB Seagate drives. RiLO constantly reports at least 3 drives as overheated when they are not. I verified this using HD Sentinel.

I am proposing to purchase QTY 2, 7 SATA port controllers and am going to build my own power cable using HP P/N 463184-002 (Spare 514217-001). Cut one end off and solder a connector to power the drives. After removing the back plane of the second drive cage all of the drives will be accessible from the rear.

I'll try to post pictures and perhaps a video on YouTube when finished.

user1670137
  • 11
  • 1