DL380 G6: P410 or AOC-S2308L-L8E?

[politby]

Hi all,

I have a ProLiant DL380 g6 running ESXi which is currently populated with 8 HP SAS drives. This is working great and the server is pretty much dead silent.

I need to add a few more drives so I have purchased an add on cage for an additional 8 drives. My plan was to add an HBA for JBOD to create a flexraid pool. I found a good deal on a SuperMicro AOC-S2308L-L8E which is now sitting here still in its box because I have found out about the problem with HP servers ramping up their fans to 100 % when non-HP cards are installed.

The question is now if I should return the Supermicro card and instead get an HP P410 which I can get for almost nothing. I would then not be able to run Flexraid but I think I would be able to live with RAID 5 and a hot spare. Is this going to result in a much quieter system?

I do keep it in a rack in a store room so there is no need for it to be living room quiet, especially since there is already a Supermicro server with noisy power supplies in there, but fans running at max speed is definitely a no go.

 

[Patrick]

If you have a HP server and HP drives, using a SmartArray card is probably a good idea.

 

[politby]

If you have a HP server and HP drives, using a SmartArray card is probably a good idea.

I guess so. What I was hoping to be able to do with the supermicro card, however, was to use standard seagate sata drives rather than sas in the second drive cage.
But what about the alleged fan speed issue with cards not from HP?

 

[cptbjorn]

The fans don't go straight to 100% but they do get bumped up from the quiet stock level. I ran one for a while with a crossflashed M1015 and it wasn't bladecenter loud but still too much for where I was keeping it. Last I looked 2 years ago you couldn't get around it by getting a H220 either since its not on the support list.

I'd just try it and see, any unsupported card should work.

 

[zefrench]

As you might know the p410 is limited to 3gb/s in SATA mode versus the 6gb/s of the SAS mode.

 

[Patriot]

If it doesnt feed iLO temp data... server resorts to better safe than sorry mode.

 

[politby]

As you might know the p410 is limited to 3gb/s in SATA mode versus the 6gb/s of the SAS mode.

I am aware of that, won't be a problem.
Meanwhile I sold the supermicro card at a small profit and bought a 512MB w/ BBWC P410 for $25

 

[politby]

Update: I also found an HP SAS expander which I picked up for next to nothing.

What would be the preferred way to go - second P410 or SAS expander?

 

[charlie]

Hi,

The official solution is to add HP SAS expander card: 468406-B21.

So you can handle all 16 HDD's on one RAID card.

 

[politby]

Thanks, that makes sense. Having 2 RAID cards may be asking for trouble.
6 cables rather than 4, though.

 

[charlie]

Thanks, that makes sense. Having 2 RAID cards may be asking for trouble.
6 cables rather than 4, though.

Yes.

2 cable from P410 to expander, and also 2-2 cables from expander to backplane.