Dell Disk Array Storage with HP Server Help !!

[molesy]

Ok guys so this is long shot i know but looking for any ideas that would work.

We have a HP DL360 Server and a Dell DiskArray. Yes i know HP Storage units will work best with HP but got a good deal on the Dell ones and would like to see if we can get them to work.

The issuse is that if we use a HP smart array PCIe card the unit it detected but we are getting extra drives detected. So the HP smart controller should be seeing 60 Drives but it says there are 120 Drivves which is not possible, basically double.

We also got a Perc card but the Hp server will not boot and gives us illegal opcode when trying to boot cant even get into BIOS before it does that. If the PERC card is in HBA mode we can boot but we dont want that.

Yes the unit works if we have the controllers in HBA mode but we dont want to have to configure a RAID array on windows. We need the RAID cards to manage it. Need sometihing stable that we can use for production ideally. happy to use the Smart array or Dell Perc card to get it to work.

Updated the BIOS of the DL360 Server in hopes that would allow some compatibility but that has not helped. Open to suggestions we can try to get it working stable.
Any other firmware or anything else we should look at ?


HP DL360 Server


Dell Storage Array

 

[molesy]

We also cant boot into the system with the Dell PERC card without anything attached to it.

 

[bonox]

Guessing that all the drives in the dell unit are SAS and the card is showing you both ports on each of the 60 drives

As to the bootable question, that'll come down to how the card is setup once you get into it, and which 'card' or device the server bios is setup to use. If you exhaust the list and run out of non-bootable options then nothing will happen as you've found; that is, if you force the server to boot from the PERC card, but there are no bootable devices hanging off it, then you're stuck. Reorder the boot list to where you want it to boot from.

 

[bonox]

If by "HP smart array" you mean the P410/P420 i'd expect of that machine, then I suspect you've got two sas cables connected to the dell array in a duplicate failover fashion. Try starting with only one and see how many drives show up. If that works, go to the literature and determine how the cascade cabling arrangement is supposed to work.

 

[molesy]

hey. so we have P822, P420I etc as top of the boot order the os is on a RAID in the 420I. there is onlay a single SAS cable to the storage unit. the only thing is if the HP server put the PERC card as primary when its plugged in. but we cant even get into BIOS when PERC card is insatlled.

 

[bonox]

you say that the perc card as HBA will boot but the IR mode won't and you don't say what the card is, nor what you mean by raid vs hba. I do know some servers look for vendor id's on cards and behave badly if they don't get what they expect. If the perc HBA mode is a cross flash that does not have the dell vendor id any more, that might explain why it works. Other options - in the raid mode, you do have the boot rom loaded to the card?

 

[molesy]

its a Dell PERC H830 card

 

[bonox]

Have you tried moving the card to another slot a la

Accessing Dell PERC H800 from non-Dell server

I'm wondering if it's possible to access the Dell PERC H800A from an Intel server (not a Dell server), for performing the initial configuration of an MD1200 storage enclosure? I've not worked with an

serverfault.com

 

[molesy]

will try those tomorrow at work.

 

[molesy]

ok tried different PCIE slots but no luck. updated the cards Firmware etc also no luck. loosk like its just a no go :/