Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD

You're not having much luck are you?!

We're running 4x 6TB reds at work but they are attached to a P420 instead of the integrated controller.
 
I getting something wrong somewhere! Just had my 2 x 3TB drives for the other 2 slots delivered - so I put them in - and the server seemed to remember that the last drives I used were the 6TB drives and said drives were u/s and blanked out the array. I deleted the array thinking that the drives would re-appear as unassigned - but no they have disappeared! totally. I cannot seem to get them to show - even with rescan.

I am almost in despair here - £100 of server and £300 of HDDs and nothing to show except an empty server that boots into Windows 7.

Anything I do to clear the arrays will also clear my OS drive array and make my invisible drives appear?

HELP! (please)
 
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Mel_P said:
But can I do this without reinstalling the OS?
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As long as the OS drive isn't part of the array. Yup.

I'd remove the OS drive when you do it, and setup the array again without it attached however just in case... You know computers can be.
 
Steveocee said:
I think at this point I'd be doing a full BIOS reset (including RAID controller) and starting a fresh.
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I powered down, disconnected the mains lead, disconnected OS drive.

Then I moved the tiny blue BIOS reset jumper to the other side. Waited a few minutes. Put it back to the original position, reconnected SSD data lead and rebooted. Still no "Bay" drives recognised. Windows SSD in DVD bay OK.

Is this what you mean doing a BIOS reset please?

The Raid controller has a reset but the OS is on a RAID 0 drive (using DVD connection) this may render my OS disk non -working?
 
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Well - cracked it - simple - you have to "clean" the HDD in DISKPART before reusing it. Then the Microserver recognises it.

I had left the drive with a volume letter assigned and formatted. In this state it is apparently ignored by the HP Array detection process.

3TB Raid 1 array created with the 2 "new" 3TB cleaned disks
6TB Raid 0 array created with one of the 6TB cleaned disks.

Simple but not seen this mentioned anywhere. New to all this RAID stuff! Nervous now to leave the drives for a soak test!!

Mel

PS - BUT it still not happy - keeps saying drives recovered - but as far as I can see it's the controller not the drives which is problematic and over-sensitive! Bah. HP

PPS - Perhaps I should reset the whole thing going on the ACHI controller - but will this mean reinstalling the OS on a Raid 0 drive (DVD slot)

Mel
 
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Well it didn't last - left it after 29 mins and when I came back after 3 hours all three Raid 0 storage drives were showing "failed drive" errors - but not the Raid 0 SSD on the DVD SATA connection.

Why is this solid as a rock but other drives keep supposedly failing. I say supposedly as they are OK as simple volumes in windows - there seems to be an issue with the Raid controller for the 4 bay drives.

Does this indicate any particular issue?

App Event viewer shows these:

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1" (and later \DR3)

"Exception while generating JSON: Management path 'root\cimv2:Win32_BaseBoard' not found!"

and system event viewer showed this;

"A drive failure notification has been received for the SATA physical drive located in bay 3. This drive can be found in box 0 which is connected to port 3I of the array controller B120i [Embedded]. The failure reason received from the HP Smart Array firmware is: REMOVED_IN_HOT_PLUG." (quite a few of these!"

Which was not true - I was trying to write to it and the drive disappeared in Windows explorer at that time!

What is happening! Thanks, Mel
 
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How are you connecting the pairs of drives? You will want identical drives in 1+2 or 3+4 (if RAIDing both pairs), remember that only ports 1-2 are 6Gb, while the 3-4 are 3Gb. Which OS and what version of the RAID drivers are you using?

Also worth checking the connectors on the back of the 4 slots, some people have had issues with loose connections.

Try to diagnose a single thing at a time. One drive in one slot, as RAID 0. See how it tests, then try two drives in RAID 1 in ports 1/2 or 3/4.
 
Ricimer said:
How are you connecting the pairs of drives? You will want identical drives in 1+2 or 3+4 (if RAIDing both pairs), remember that only ports 1-2 are 6Gb, while the 3-4 are 3Gb. Which OS and what version of the RAID drivers are you using?

Also worth checking the connectors on the back of the 4 slots, some people have had issues with loose connections.

Try to diagnose a single thing at a time. One drive in one slot, as RAID 0. See how it tests, then try two drives in RAID 1 in ports 1/2 or 3/4.
Click to expand...

Hello - tried logical fault finding - been on this for a week (good job I am retired!)

tried 2 x 6tb raid 1 in slots 1, 2
tried 2 x 3tb raid 1 in slots 1,2 or 3, 4
tried single drives in raid 0 in all of the slots!

tried taking out the plug that connects to the motherboard and putting it back in - it didn't appear loose.

Many times!

ALL drives initially set themselves up OK in the array controller, and appear in windows after formatting, but when I try to read or write to the drive (or array) it just "disappears" from Windows and shows up as "failed" in the Array configuration array. On reboot the drives usually reconnect if I press F2. They seem to be very "loosely" attached to the controller and loose connection easily!

I have reset the BIOS and the raid controller and reinstalled windows - to no avail - same behaviour afterwards.

I have now reinstalled windows on the SATA ACHI controller (non-raid) to see what happens there - on-going.

Thanks, Mel
 
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ahci will at least let you know if it's a RAID or hardware issue. I've not spent much time with the RAID options as I am planning to use freenas once I get enough drives.
 
Installed on SATA ACHI controller and on its own SSD in port 5 boots BUT when I put other HDDs it won't boot to the SSD - just misses it! Triies to boot from other devices - perhaps I will have to install it in that port?

Any suggestions?

Perhaps I need to install the OS on a drive in port 1?
 
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You can install the OS to a disk in port 1, yes, then test that, maybe port 3 after for another disk.

I'm booting from the internal usb with freenas so avoid the issue of it only booting from the ports in ascending order, have a 1TB 2.5 in the dvd bay though.
 
Hey ho! The server will only boot from port 1 if there are other drives in the other bays (or at least 1). So min config is OS port 1, storage drive port 2.

Seems to boot OK with 480GB SSD "perched" in bay 1 and 2 x 3 GB drives (bay 2, 3). Let's see what happens when it sits there all night?
 
Swapped the processor in one of mine - I use it for CCTV and adding another camera pushed the processor usage up to unacceptable levels. I chose an E3-1220LV2 as I didn't need much more oomph and it wouldn't mind the passive cooling and is known to work.

I used arctic silver 5 for the thermal paste. So far the fan has reduced from 46% to 37% but no apparent reductions in temperature. But the processor usage is down so all's good :)

No idea why this particular one sits at such a high fan - the others sit at 11% and are setup similarly.
 
Mel_P said:
Hey ho! The server will only boot from port 1 if there are other drives in the other bays (or at least 1). So min config is OS port 1, storage drive port 2.

Seems to boot OK with 480GB SSD "perched" in bay 1 and 2 x 3 GB drives (bay 2, 3). Let's see what happens when it sits there all night?
Click to expand...

Humpth - in morning trying (unsuccessfully) to reboot. Will reinstall windows with SSD in bay 1 - it's a different controller apparently.

Let's see the outcome (not hopeful).

Mel
 
Hey Mel,

I'm going to make a couple of assumptions 1 you have a microserver Gen 8 and 2 your trying to install windows.

Here is how my Gen 8 is configured

1 SSD in port 5 the DVD sata port 5 (Windows 8.1)
4 2TB HDD's in the drive bays (Raid array Data)
OS windows 8.1 Pro

I found out the hard way that you cannot just install windows the old fashioned way, i.e boot from a DVD or USB key and load the thing. You have to use HP's embedded configuration tool on the server. The reason is it is expecting a server OS and it basiacally embeds the drivers required while installing the OS. For windows 8.1 you get way with it as it uses server 2012 r2 so with Windows 7 it'll use 2008.

While you are trying to boot from a pre ordained windows 7 install I don't think this will work because of what I have stated, and I'm guessing that the errors on the Disks a red herrings due to the server not seeing drivers or the like correctly.

In my config I set the SSD to a single raid 0 and then set the 4 HDDs to their own raid 0 array. The server will boot from port five but the HP ACU has to provision which device is bootable when you select where the OS is installed.

again this info is based on my own wasted 4 hours or so sussing out this thing.

Keep at it these boxes are dinamite once configured.

CB
 
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I've only installed server OS on these but if it's that much hassle to install a non-server OS perhaps use hyper-v server and then install 8.1 or whatever as a VM?
 
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