Western Digital red 3tb drives + HP P410 - ISSUE

Peter929

Peter929

Peter929

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22 Mar 2011
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Hi All

I've got an issue which is really frustrating me,

I've just got myself an HP ML110 (quad core Xeon / 16GB), a HP P410 raid controller, and 3 * western digital red 3TB drives.

The plan being to create a RAID 5 array across the 3 drives to give me circa 5.5TB useable.

However the raid controller is not playing ball,

On boot it recognises the drives, however at 0.0GB

Capture2_zps93488959.jpg


When I launch up the array config utility, it states that the physical drives are not supported on this firmware.


Capture_zps51d9183e.jpg




I've had a good look and I cant see that it states the current firmware level anywhere, which is annoying.

Looking on the HP website for the latest firmware, its got me confused :(

Im also struggling to find doc's as to the actual upgrade process (ideally without needing an OS installed).


There's other people with the same raid card and drives, and the card is supported in the ML110 so shouldn't be the issue.


Thoughts?
 
If they are showing as 0gb have they been formatted to something the hardware isnt used to? Try plugging them into a normal sata port and see if they still show as 0gb. If they dont then it would be the raid card not liking the size of the drives
 
You can download an ISO that you boot from and installs the firmware, or there is a windows install, I do not have the link to hand but google should help
 
Latest firmware for the card:

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=3883931&spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Didx%253D%257CswItem%253DMTX_2d203263f6434296a464d84939%257CswEnvOID%253D4064%257CitemLocale%253D%257CswLang%253D%257Cmode%253D%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

Run the exe and it'll update from within Windows then ask you to reboot. If it's not compatible in anyway with the card it won't let you install / run it (i like that HP do this :)).

I've got a P400 and when i tried my 3tb RED's on it it saw them but only at 2tb, that was at the bios screen and in Windows itself. I didn't change any jumpers on the RED's either.

I suspect with the latest firmware you'll be fine :)

:edit:
Should add the P400 doesn't support over 2tb hence the reported size, your P410 does support 2tb+ as i understand it.
 
Had a lot of experience with these cards, ensure the latest firmware is installed and try replacing the cable. How are you connecting to the hard disks? Mini-SATA to SATA or using an internal caddy chassis? If you are using a chassis do you have two MiniSATA leads running from the backplane or one?

That should point you in the right direction. :)
 
I would suspect it's a firmware issue, have that exact card running those exact drives but in a microserver and have no issues - but I did run a firmware update first which may explain it.

You haven't stated what gen your ML110 is, but if it's a G7 then I'd highly recommend getting the SPP from here and burning it to DVD, as it will update all the firmware for all the hardware. If it's an earlier gen, I'd give it a try any way, the microserver isn't supported by the SPP but it still was able to update my P410.

And the advisory warning of 3Tb drives here
 
Last edited:
Little_Crow said:
And the advisory warning of 3Tb drives here
Click to expand...

That's a very handy link :)

HP said:
DETAILS
Without the minimum required Smart Array Controller firmware, 3TB (or larger) drives will not operate correctly, as described below:

If an HP Smart Array Controller running firmware version 3.66 (or earlier) is attached to 3TB (or larger) drives, the size of these drives will be shown as zero bytes in HP tools such as the Array Configuration Utility, Array Diagnostics Utility, Option ROM Configuration for Arrays, and the server operating system, until the firmware is upgraded.
Click to expand...
 
I would download that SPP and run it any way, there have been a few firmware revisions in the 2 years since that advisory was posted and it's always worth doing before any live data relies on it.
 
So a firmware update seems to have solved my issue :)

I have now been able to create a raid 5 array across the 3 * 3TB drives and can see it in the bios :)

Capture71_zpsc2ac6c67.jpg


Installed ESX on an internal USB pen and have created a single 5.5TB ish datastore :)

Capture72_zps083c507d.jpg



I used the HP ISO for the ESX install (in the hope it would contain all drivers and not cause me any issues), all seems to be working ok and I can see the P410 all ok :)

Capture123_zps830c277a.jpg



I've then created a new VM and done a fresh install of home server 2011, I've given it 2 vcpu's and 8GB, I've given it a 200GB drive for the OS (Which WHS annoyingly splits into 2 when it installs) and a 2TB drive for data.

Capture1234_zps8ec25d25.jpg



All is working ok and im just having a play with WHS to get my head round it before I start copying too much data to it (and working out how to structure the shares and permissions etc etc).

But the VM does feel a bit sluggish, slower than I was expecting :(

Copying files is about what I was expecting (from PC to server - 3GB file), hovers around the 100mb mark for the whole transfer.

Capture12345_zps34b37e96.jpg



and copying the file back (Server to PC, same 3GB file). again hovers around the 100mb mark for the whole transfer.


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But the disk latency looks stupidly high doesn't it?

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Any suggestions where I should be looking next?
 
Glad to see you got it working.

Are the ESX guest drivers installed on the OS? It looks like the OS virtual hard disk on the same datastore as the file store?

One is showing megabytes whilst your network is in megabits. By my working that is around 800MBit/s? Take it you are on 1GBit/s Ethernet? If so that is pretty decent performance. If you use a benchmarking tool like cystaldisk it should give you the I/O performance within the guest, see if that helps you?

You can team multiple network cards on ESXi however it will be limited by the lowest throughput plane (usually the PC to the switch - unless that is also teamed).
 
VMware tools are running if that's what you mean?

Yeah both the virtual drives are in the same datastore, is / could that be a bad thing? I wanted it like this ideally just to keep things simple.

Both machines have a single 1gb link at the moment, I could add a 2nd link from the server to switch (if my switch supports it), but would be a pain to add another link from my pc :(
 
Yup the VMWare tools. :)

These are general practice on how to improve things, one or more may be able to help you.

* The general practice we employ here is to have the virtual OS on a dedicated hard disk away from the filestores. Generally if the server is under heavy I/O usage on the filestore it doesn't effect the OS performing it's functions. Therefore lower latency for the filestore and the OS as they are not accessing the same pool at the same time. Hope that makes sense, it's a nicety rather than a requirement. If you are not heavily utilising the filestore then it should be fine on the same disk.

* The network is only as fast as the slowest link. There is another way to do it by tweaking the network by enabling jumbo frames if you are transferring large files. This would need to be enabled on both the server, switch and PC. Jumbo frames here

* If your switch supports LACP if may help you to split the traffic on the server side by using a secondary Ethernet and load balance between the two Ethernet ports server side. This is a little more difficult but it should help reduce the saturation of the Ethernet link. Trouble is now the performance is limited by network performance rather than hard disk performance.

* Probably the most crucial to performance Does your HP P410 have a cache installed with a battery or FBWC? Is it enabled and what is the read / write performance threshold? If you are using it as a file server then I recommend a 50/50 read/write split. You can check the card cache by checking HP Smart Storage Administrator (An Autorun Live CD that allows you to configure the array). You can download it here

Hope these help you.
 
Peter929 said:
Copying files is about what I was expecting (from PC to server - 3GB file), hovers around the 100mb mark for the whole transfer.

Capture12345_zps34b37e96.jpg



and copying the file back (Server to PC, same 3GB file). again hovers around the 100mb mark for the whole transfer.


Capture111222_zps00389e3b.jpg
Click to expand...

Your disks are actually copying more around the 1Gb mark rather than 100mb mark. Latency is probably being caused because you are using the full bandwidth available - you could limit the IOPS your VM has available to it which may well lower the latency.




M.
 
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