Underappreciated 14-bay 2U storage server - HP DL180 G6 for $168 shipped
- Thread starter dba
- Start date
Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.
Some useful cables for dl180 g6 tinkerers:
HP cable 536647-001 is really useful. It plugs in to the proprietary-plug wiring harness and provides a new Molex power connector with a nice long lead - perfect for powering SSD drives tucked into any corner of the chassis. The normal use for this cable is providing power to the rear-mounted two disk add-on backplane. I used it to power four internal SSD drives.
HP also has cable 491726-001 which is a very short cable that adapts the proprietary-plug harness to four SATA power connectors. Unlike the above cable, this is an end-of-the-line connector, which means that it will be of no use if you have the 12-bay backplane, since that backplane uses both proprietary-plug lines. If you have the four or eight bay backplane, however, with an unused proprietary-plug power connector available, this is a great way to power up to four SSD drives stuffed into the upper left of the chassis, in the two bays normally occupied by blanking plugs.
OKGear has a cable with the part number FLOP2MOLEX-C that takes the floppy/dvd power lead in the forward left part of the chassis and turns it into a Molex connector. This can then be adapted to one or two SATA drive power connectors. That corner of the chassis is a perfect place to stash two SSD drives, which is nice for ZIL or tiered storage in the upcoming Windows 2012 R2 storage spaces.
HP cable 536647-001 is really useful. It plugs in to the proprietary-plug wiring harness and provides a new Molex power connector with a nice long lead - perfect for powering SSD drives tucked into any corner of the chassis. The normal use for this cable is providing power to the rear-mounted two disk add-on backplane. I used it to power four internal SSD drives.
HP also has cable 491726-001 which is a very short cable that adapts the proprietary-plug harness to four SATA power connectors. Unlike the above cable, this is an end-of-the-line connector, which means that it will be of no use if you have the 12-bay backplane, since that backplane uses both proprietary-plug lines. If you have the four or eight bay backplane, however, with an unused proprietary-plug power connector available, this is a great way to power up to four SSD drives stuffed into the upper left of the chassis, in the two bays normally occupied by blanking plugs.
OKGear has a cable with the part number FLOP2MOLEX-C that takes the floppy/dvd power lead in the forward left part of the chassis and turns it into a Molex connector. This can then be adapted to one or two SATA drive power connectors. That corner of the chassis is a perfect place to stash two SSD drives, which is nice for ZIL or tiered storage in the upcoming Windows 2012 R2 storage spaces.
Last edited:
thanks for the cable part # I'll go hunting now. I rolled my own for the old storage server and found a 1:4 splitter (to sata) with capacitors. The SSD's had super-caps in them so it was double redundant.
I'm going to be using the SSD with the P420/1gb FBWC card to drive 4 SSD for both accelerated read caching and raid swap. That cable will be perfect!
I'm going to be using the SSD with the P420/1gb FBWC card to drive 4 SSD for both accelerated read caching and raid swap. That cable will be perfect!
thanks for the cable part # I'll go hunting now. I rolled my own for the old storage server and found a 1:4 splitter (to sata) with capacitors. The SSD's had super-caps in them so it was double redundant.
I'm going to be using the SSD with the P420/1gb FBWC card to drive 4 SSD for both accelerated read caching and raid swap. That cable will be perfect!
DBA does that dvd power give enough juice for 2 ssd?
Also if anyone WANTS the rear 2LFF kit, and has the non-REAR LFF - or knows where to get it, i'll trade or buy it. I have rear 2LFF and do not want it!
I'm going to be using the SSD with the P420/1gb FBWC card to drive 4 SSD for both accelerated read caching and raid swap. That cable will be perfect!
DBA does that dvd power give enough juice for 2 ssd?
Also if anyone WANTS the rear 2LFF kit, and has the non-REAR LFF - or knows where to get it, i'll trade or buy it. I have rear 2LFF and do not want it!
So, with the 14 bay version. How many actual PCIe slots are there? I would need two slots. One for the HBA and one for a 10Gbe card. Is that doable or would I have to go with the 12 bay version?
I think you'd just need the correct riser in the big PCIE slot so that you get 2 PCIE slots.
No, without doing things considered "ghetto", there is no way to do that with 14 drive bays installed. The two drives in the back sit over the 2nd PCIe slot and block its use. The PCIe x16 riser attaches to the side of the rear drive bay and they all install together.
The Ghetto approach - the way I did it - uses a PCIe 2.0 x8 "flex riser" and snakes it under the rear drive bay, with the HBA plugged into it and laying loose inside the chassis. 10Gge is plugged into the riser bolted to the side of the rear drive bay. This one has to go in back so that you can access the Ethernet from the back.
I actually DO NOT recommend doing this.
Yeah. I think in this case it's better to just go with the 12 Bay version and make sure it includes the PCIe cage, or plunk down some extra change for the 25 bay SFF version, but then I'll have to buy all new drives. Sigh.
One last question. How many on-board NICs does it come with? Intel or Broadcom?
One last question. How many on-board NICs does it come with? Intel or Broadcom?
Cool Thanks. Trying to source one with 12 bays from eBay. So far no luck. The only one I found guy wants $500 for Chassis + Rails + 2PS. Seems high.
Last edited:
Yeah, it does seem kinda silly that the "less capable" version costs more. But in the used/off-lease marketplace its pure supply and demand driving prices. Value has little influence on what is "cheap". Simple fact is that a boatload of the 14-bay systems have come off lease all at once and the resellers are dumping them. The 12-bay units are somewhat more rare and people who want them will pay a bit more to have that config.
It has surprising results sometimes...
It has surprising results sometimes...
I bought an eight-bay unit and converted it to a 12-bay with a $40 eBay drive cage replacement. I used this vendor, who is local to me:
HP Proliant DL180 G6 2X L5520 Quad 2 26GHz P410 1XPS Rail Kit No HD RAM | eBay
$300 asking including dual L5520 CPUs and the P410 card with battery, but they have a ton of them and will accept offers. Converting requires the cage plus the backplane, which are usually sold together.
HP Proliant DL180 G6 2X L5520 Quad 2 26GHz P410 1XPS Rail Kit No HD RAM | eBay
$300 asking including dual L5520 CPUs and the P410 card with battery, but they have a ton of them and will accept offers. Converting requires the cage plus the backplane, which are usually sold together.
I do not. Search eBay for "dl180 g6 cage" - they pop up often. Make sure that you are getting both the metal cage and the attached drive backplane. You'll also need a standard SFF-8087 cable to connect your RAID card or HBA to the backplane.
Depends on your needs. The P4900 is a bit odd and I see dieing in-place. The 2U-vintage, I don't see really going away in the short-term but it's use-case is shift. The majority of the resources it looks like HP is pouring in their VSA version of the product.
The P4500 G2's should be showing up on the secondary market as they are next on the chop-block not to receive any newer updates (SE1220's...modified DL180 G6's).
Larger P4500 deployments are being replaced by 3Par but say if you want 20TB of storage replicated across three sites in an active-active build-out, it's still the cheapest offering.
