Recomend a RAID-controller for HP DL180 G5

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ncdesign

New Member
Dec 19, 2013
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Hi all @ sth-forums ;-)

A few months ago i purchased a HP DL180 G5 rackserver w/ 12 bays.
I've had a DIY server running for several years wih standard parts and a HP P800 controller which i bought because of the high port count. I has been rock solid, however expansion times are awfully slow on RAID6 (2 - 3 weeks to add a 2TB Hitachi drive), which has led me to fear that rebuild times will be equally slow, so when buying the new server, i decided to get a new and decent raid-controller which is able to handle RAID-6 and appr. 15-20 drives in RAID6. The 8 drives currently attached will be transferred to the new controller, and will in time grow to around 15 - 20 disks.

But will anything other than a HP-controller work in the DL180?
If yes,
I have a few need-to-have-things on my wish list for a new controller:

Should be able to disregard/override the attached disks timeouts, as i will be using consumer-drives (most probably Hitachi 7k2000 and their equivalent, after hitachi stopped making disks).
Have decent expansion/rebuild rates (ie *not* in the weeks range).
Battery-backup or preferably some implementation of CacheVault (as i understand CacheVault doesn't degrade over time as bateries do).
RAID-6 (obviously)

Nice to have
Should be able to monitor SMART-status and temperature (and if possible, be able to pass these readings to thirdparty programs like Harddisk Sentinel)


I've looked at a LSI9271 4i or 8i controller, because of the dual core ROC, and reviews seems to agree that its a good controller, however a bit pricey.

Or an Areca 1882 with 8i ports.
Dell, HP or IBM cards are welcome too, but i don't know enough about them to make an informed decision (yet ;-)


The reason I'm going after a high end controller and connecting low-end disks, is that i hope the controller can speed up the rebuild (obviously not faster than the individual disks, however i don't believe it to be necessary to use appr. 3 weeks for an 2TB expansion to a 6-drive RAID6...)

Maybe the controllers are way overkill for my needs, but i've really had enough of 3 weeks expansions ;-)

If anyone have input as to cables I would appreciate it very much, as the backplane of the drivebay uses a SF-8484 Wide connector, and I've read somewhere that they are directional...

Just a thought - Is it possible to start out with 2 TB disks, add 3 (or 4) TB disk, and phase out the smaller drives over time, and then expand the array to use the full 3 (or 4) TB disks, when the last of the 2TB drives are out of the array?

Thanks in advance (and merry Christmas ;-)
 
Last edited:

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
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I've used a P810 in one. The controller isn't the hold-up. it's the drives. stick to sas drives!
 

ncdesign

New Member
Dec 19, 2013
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3
I've used a P810 in one. The controller isn't the hold-up. it's the drives. stick to sas drives!
Are you telling me, that if i switch to SAS drives my expand times will drop to around a day or two?
there is 3600*24*7*3 =1.841.400 seconds in three weeks. There's 200.000MB to 2TB.
That gives an expansion rate of 2.000.000MB/1.841.400 secs = 0.1MB/s or roughly 100kByte/s.
Doesn't makes sense to me, since a lot of users have desktop drives in rather large arrays...

Thanks for your input anyway... ;-)
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
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Sas mainline drives 10K/15K definitely faster, remember sata is half-duplex. and 1 target.

Obviously you can't bend the laws of physics, but if you are doing raid proper you should be able to work it out. I'd suggest raid-50/60 for array larger than 6 drives anyhoo. then if you lose a drive you still have one axle complete.

I'm not a big fan of the raid-5 crap but raid-50 is the fastest possible way to restore (d2d) backups so my DL180 has 12 drives in raid-50 (2TB sata). Rebuild times are not that bad, then again i've had two drive failures in 6 years. D2D as in writing balls-out all night long, then reading balls-out all day long 24 x7 x 365 non-stop.

Have to be careful the P810/820/830 draw more than 25 watts, which is a problem. The slot the P800 sits in usually can only provide 25 watts - only some machines have the ability to give a little extra.
 

ncdesign

New Member
Dec 19, 2013
15
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RAID x0 arrays goes way beyound my scope - it's a file/media-server for home use.
SAS-disks i also way beyond the reasonable price-tag for my setup... The 'I' in my RAID stands for Inexpensive ;-)
I've been reading a lot tonight about the different RAID-cards, and have (90%) decided on a IBM M5016 w/CacheVault, which I can buy locally (Denmark) pretty cheap for around $360.
Does anyone know, if I will experience problems with putting this in a HP DL180 G5 rack server?