HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

WarlordBB said:
For example, while certainly an interesting project, I'm sure no one would suggest I do what this guy did:

http://www.servethehome.com/category/the-big-whs-30-drive-whs/

and use Windows Server 2008 R2 as the Host. I assume I'd want to have whatever file server OS I'm using installed on the bare metal.
Click to expand...

Yea that guy is a loon and a nut IMO. :)

Honestly, I use that thing for storing tons of witness prep video. The nice thing is that it is SUPER easy to maintain. The bad thing is that it has since grown to a second 4U Norco box to hold test drives for playing with VM's and such. It actually passed 60TiB raw last week, and added a few SSD's.

Bottom line: don't use that for tons of users at work. The commercial dedupe and etc packages are pretty good. On the other hand, if you need some sort of temporary storage at work, it is a pretty sweet setup. You could fairly easily setup a box for a few grand as a temporary storage pool.

I know... I need to update the log. Been busy buying a new road bike so my post-work cycles have been dedicated to that front. Somewhat like that server, I started with a $1k budget last Friday morning, and by the time I left the bike shop today the damage was over $4k :)
 
pjkenned said:
Yea that guy is a loon and a nut IMO. :)
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Actually I have to fess up to trolling a bit there because I was almost sure you were and OCP'er :D

However, I did NOT know that you could present drives directly to VM's with Hyper-V so I learned something new.

We don't take advantage of any dedupe right now. We use our $100,000 EMC NS20 as a file server. My thought was, with enough spindles behind it, except for the fact of the dual motherboard factor, we could be a file server that could match the performance of what we have now.

As I've said, that would be worth doing if only to prove the experiment because I would take the end result off their hands for almost what they had in it (plus I would get to play - the most important part :)).

So, at that point, if we were able to build a performance match with a homegrown solution, we'd at least know where we stood. We could either choose to rely on that, knowing that we might face some interruption or we could start looking for more Enterprise solutions that were less than $100,000 + $20,000/year support after year 3 (like we have now). Such as the ISS3500 that would be a fraction of the cost of what we have now but still be an Enterprise solution.

Hell, for the kind of money we are talking, we could get creative and build 2 exact homegrown solutions, run them side by side and use our VizionCore stuff to trickle mirror the VM's to the second device, and/or other inventive disaster plans and STILL bank a lot of money per year.
 
Since Adaptec just sold off their raid business to PMC-Sierra, we might see adaptec cards working with the HP expander in a future update.
 
packetboy said:
Building box with this:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/QPI/5500/X8DTL-3F.cfm

Motherboard has 8 *SAS* (not! SATA) ports...need cable to connect these to HP sas expander?


I see various sites selling "forward" and "reverse" breakout cables...unclear which to use?

Also, most breakout cables indicate they are to connect 4 *SATA* ports to a single SFF8087...when I need to connect 4 *SAS* to SFF8087.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

This is the part number of the 3ware cable I'm using: CBL-SFF-8087OCR. I've got an ASUS P5BV/SAS with the LSI1068E controller and this 3ware works fine between it and my HP SAS expander.
 
novadude said:
Since Adaptec just sold off their raid business to PMC-Sierra, we might see adaptec cards working with the HP expander in a future update.
Click to expand...

I just saw this as well. Thank goodness I didnt pull the trigger on an Adaptec. Now lets hope Areca keeps the prices low even after gaining some market share.
 
Guys,

Just received 4 9650SE-16ML 3Ware cards into stock this morning. All bulk, no cables.

Contact me directly if interested.

Thanks!
 
Alot of great info in this huge thread, I just wanted to find out if anyone has tried the HP expander with the Areca 1300ix card? I know its been stated that it works with the ARC-1300-4x, just wanted to know if anyone has tested with the 1300ix?
 
i am sitting on a 1300ix card too. just upgrading my server now, but if odd or one of the other heavy weights wants to test it i maybe able to ship it out.

personally interested in external daisy chaining if i win the lottery.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Kettchxxii said:
i am sitting on a 1300ix card too. just upgrading my server now, but if odd or one of the other heavy weights wants to test it i maybe able to ship it out.

personally interested in external daisy chaining if i win the lottery.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
Click to expand...

I believe the 1300ix has an onboard SAS expander like the 1680ix series does. I think there have been issues with the HP SAS expander and the Areca's onboard expander cooperating with each other. I don't have an Areca ix series card, so I can't speak from personal experience though.
 
thanx for the info epimetheus, if anyone has this combination of 1300ix working with the HP expander can you please share your thoughts.

I have just emailed areca as well, lets see what they come back with, this card would be ideal for me as it also offers 4 interal sas ports so you can connect an additional 16 drives internally + the HP expander.
 
Do you already have a 1300ix? If not there are other comparable options.
 
i rememder odd musing that it _should_ work externally, but probably is a no go internally.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
No I dont have one, but it was one of the cards I was looking to get if it works with the HP, from a cost point of view it is half of the price of the ARC-1680ix-8 or something similar here in the UK. Any other thoughts of something similar?

My setup would be a Norco 4220 with the drives connected to the HP SAS, which would then be connected to my main rig, which can hold another 16 drives, so the 1300ix seems like a good solution for me in that respect. This all being the cheapest solution, to have one card connected to everything :) for around £280 its pretty damn good
 
So really the 1680 series has an internal expander that conflicts with the HP making it a bad choice?

I have the HP expander now using with a cheapo card, and am looking for an areca to pair it with, I use areca cards at work and like them the most compared to the other brands ive used, especially love their management software.
 
But the 1680-i, LP, and x cards do not have the DDR slot to add up to 4GB of ram correct? How does that impact performance??
 
Thought you were looking for inexpensive? If you really want a slot for memory, the original 1680 card has that. Do you really want to spend $300 on a 4gb stick of RAM too? What are you doing that you would benefit from all the extra memory? The majority of people here don't need it and I didn't mind going from a card with 2gb to one with 512mb as for what I'm doing, there is no difference in performance at all.
 
I was just going to get a 2GB stick. I trust you though when you say its not necessary at all.

I have an inexpensive card now and I just dont like it. Since it looks like I will have to spend over $500 to get the quality I desire all bets are off as far as I'm concerned.

I'm thinking about waiting for the 1880LP that should be available any day now, as that would have quite a bit more performance.
 
@odditory, can you please put something about disabling SES2 on an areca 1680 series back in the first post? I just spent a few hours trying to debug mine, only to see that mentioned in treadstone's build thread, as well as an earlier version of your post copied to another forum.

I am using an areca 1680i with 1.0 firmware and a SAS expander with 2.02 firmware, and with SES2 enabled it would only see 1 drive on 1 port of the expander. When I disabled it and rebooted, it instantly saw all 10 drives I currently have connected.
 
1.0 firmware? I've never seen one that low. Unless you have the beta firmware (which might not be available anymore), you will need to have SES2 disabled. Areca has stated that this won't be an issue with the 1880 series cards though.
 
nvm it's 1.47 firmware, just for some reason it says v1.0 in the web interface overview.

and yes, my point was that you apparently need ses2 disabled for the 1680 series and it would helpful to have that info in the first post.
 
If you update the firmware to v1.48 (available on areca's ftp site) and also use the firmware file that odditory posted that areca supplied recently (altough not on their ftp site yet), this will fix your SES2 / HP SAS expander compatibility issue.

I updated my ARC1680i with the firmware file that odditory posted on this forum and now have SES2 enabled and all 48 2TB drives are visible and the enclosure management works great as well.

The only other issue still left with the HP SAS expanders is that they reorder all the bays backwards. I talked to areca tech support and they told me that there is nothing they can do about it as the expander is supposed to take care of this! Oh well... Not a big deal, the drives go right to left in my enclosure rather than left to right...
 
blargsauce said:
nvm it's 1.47 firmware, just for some reason it says v1.0 in the web interface overview.

and yes, my point was that you apparently need ses2 disabled for the 1680 series and it would helpful to have that info in the first post.
Click to expand...

That was stated for long time and then removed when firmware fix became available. I put it back in any case, I realize many people aren't going to read past first post.
 
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cool, thanks. I have read through a lot of this thread, but not all 40 pages, and I guess I missed that.
I think at some point huge threads actually make it harder to find information rather than easier, trying to sift through almost 800 posts now.
 
I can tell you for sure the Intel SASUC8i cards work fine in OpenSolaris. These are rebranded LSI 3081E-R cards (even have LSI markings on the board)

I flashed mine with LSI IT firmware.

works very well in OpenSolairs
 
I searched but couldn't find any specific information, but has anyone tried the AOC-USAS-L4i?

I saw the SuperMicro AOC-USAS-L8i is confirmed on the first post.

As it stands it looks like it would be the cheapest option for running one norco with the expander then later attaching a second norco via the external.

Links:
SM Product page: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-L4i_R.cfm
AOC-USAS-L4i(R) PDF: http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/AOC-USAS-L4iR.pdf

Its currently 150ish on ebay: http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=AOC-USAS-L4i

Can anyone confirm that this will work internally and externally?

Additional:

3-1 RAID Modes
There are three RAID modes that are supported by the AOC-USAS-L4i/L4IR Add-on
Card:
• IT Mode (Initiator and Target Mode): This is the default mode for the
AOC-USAS-L4i/L4IR Add-on Card. The maximum support for this mode is up to 122
hard disk drives under expander topology. This mode does not support RAID.
This mode requires an IT mode firmware flash to the BIOS and an IT mode driver
installation to the OS.


Edit2:

Its one of those UIO cards, and probably more trouble than its worth.
 
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Kettchxxii said:
I searched but couldn't find any specific information, but has anyone tried the AOC-USAS-L4i?

I saw the SuperMicro AOC-USAS-L8i is confirmed on the first post.

As it stands it looks like it would be the cheapest option for running one norco with the expander then later attaching a second norco via the external.

Links:
SM Product page: http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-L4i_R.cfm
AOC-USAS-L4i(R) PDF: http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/other/AOC-USAS-L4iR.pdf

Its currently 150ish on ebay: http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=AOC-USAS-L4i

Can anyone confirm that this will work internally and externally?



Additional:

3-1 RAID Modes
There are three RAID modes that are supported by the AOC-USAS-L4i/L4IR Add-on
Card:
• IT Mode (Initiator and Target Mode): This is the default mode for the
AOC-USAS-L4i/L4IR Add-on Card. The maximum support for this mode is up to 122
hard disk drives under expander topology. This mode does not support RAID.
This mode requires an IT mode firmware flash to the BIOS and an IT mode driver
installation to the OS.


Edit2:

Its one of those UIO cards, and probably more trouble than its worth.
Click to expand...


dude, get the intel SASUC8I

it's 150ish on newegg, this is a rebranded LSI SAS3081E-R (same chipset as the other 2 cards you mention) and it has a normal pci socket, can be flashed with LSI IT firmware.

I have 3 of these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117157


if you end up needed external, just get one of those sff-8087->sff-8088 adapters mounted to a pci bracket like so:

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_cables_adapters/AD8788-1.asp
 
Does anyone know if the HP SAS expander supports staggered spinup? I don't have it plugged into a controller ATM and all the drives hooked up to it turned on all at once.
 
orpheus88 said:
I think it depends on the controller/backplane/drives rather than the expander.
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I don't think so. When hooked up directly to my LSI based SAS2 HBA controller I they had about 0.5 to 1 second of staggered spinup but hooked up to the SAS expander they all startup at once (machine hit around 700w power usage). I guess I can live with it but I sure am glad that I bought a 850 watt PSU for the system!
 
If I recall correctly, every time I power up my server it goes beyond 1100W during initial drive spin-up. Once the controller shuts down drives, it will do the staggered spin-up. Now I don't know if that's an Areca controller, HP SAS expander, back-plane or drive issue, but when the staggered spin-up is enabled, it will spin-up the first drive, wait for it to be initialized, wait the staggered spin-up period, then start up the next drive and so on, which is useless as it takes WAY to long to bring up a RAID set. I need to do a test without the HP SAS expander in line to see if it still happens with the drives directly connected to the controller...
 
Can't you configure how much drives the controller is supposed to spin-up ? I can do that on my 3ware 9690SA-8I.

@houkouonchi is the expander hooked up to the "LSI based SAS2 HBA" when doing so ? In the post before you did say its not (at least thats what I understood), which would explain why they spin up at once, because the controller is responsible to send the spin-up-signal.
 
orpheus88 said:
Can't you configure how much drives the controller is supposed to spin-up ? I can do that on my 3ware 9690SA-8I.

@houkouonchi is the expander hooked up to the "LSI based SAS2 HBA" when doing so ? In the post before you did say its not (at least thats what I understood), which would explain why they spin up at once, because the controller is responsible to send the spin-up-signal.
Click to expand...


Before it wasn't but as of my last post yes its hooked up to the LSI SAS2 HBA controller and staggered spinup doesn't work (all drives spin up at once).
 
Is the a copy of the Areca v1.48 beta firmware which fixes the SES2 issue with the hp sas exander avaliable still?
 
It's listed that you can use the AOC-SASLP-MV8 with this. Does that mean you can run 28 drives off a single MV8+HP or is it still limited to 8 drives?

I'm assuming that is a non-issue if you're using an ARC-1680i+HP for this purpose.
 
I just set up a AOC-SASLP-MV8 with expander last night. You only see 8 drives in the saslp bios, but the os sees all 10 that are currently hooked up through the expander. More drives are in route.
 
Kettchxxii said:
I just set up a AOC-SASLP-MV8 with expander last night. You only see 8 drives in the saslp bios, but the os sees all 10 that are currently hooked up through the expander. More drives are in route.
Click to expand...

Yep, the 8-drive Int13 limitation of most HBA's has been addressed and its by design. The O/S mode driver will show all 32 drives connected to an HP expander unless the vendor gimped their driver. In the case of my Areca 1300-4x it sees all 32 drives.
 
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