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HPE Proliant Gen8 Microserver BIOS settings for XPEnology?


mr9v9

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Hello everyone this is going to be my first post on this forum. I did a search but could only find bits and pieces to help with my config, but can I get some users to chime in what are the best settings in BIOS to set for a Gen8? I am mostly curious about power draw, C-states, RAID ect.

Currently on AHCI using 1.03b DS3617xs DSM 6.2. Xeon E3-1265L V2 and 16gb RAM

Thanks!

Edited by mr9v9
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Thanks for some of that feedback, fan noise is a big factor as well as power draw for me. Under Power Management Options>Advanced Power Management Options>I am disabling most of the C-states, leaving Intel QPI Link Power Management on for now, not sure what Collaborative Power Control does but leaving that as well. HP Power Regulator>set to OS Control Mode.

 

The only Services I have running are VMM (VM not running) and 1 SMB share on two HDD's. I was at 43w on DSM before any changes, 61w sitting in BIOS config menu, and 53w after applying these changes. iLO reports fan is sitting at 27% for me at "idle" on AHCI RAID and caching disabled.

I feel like C-States was doing something and I might be able to lower the power draw further, but I am not 100% sure if this kernel for 1.03b detects it?

 

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I have some findings after doing a little research and adjusting settings, it looks like I found the sweet spot for power draw and performance, as well as having functioning WOL, lower fan speed, and as an added bonus HDD's going to sleep!

 

I am using the very latest Latest Service Pack 2018.09.0 (P03093_001_spp-Gen8.1-SPPGen81.4.iso) with all firmware updates and current iLO. HPE decided you needed a warranty to get the download, let's not muck about with that: Download here

 

I set the iLO time manually to a time server under Network>iLO Dedicated Network Port>SNTP Propagate NTP time to host. Unchecked use DHCPv4 and DHCPv6. I don't use IPv6 so I have that disabled, and under IPv4 I have ping gateway on startup unchecked. My WINS server is my router, if this is pointing to your XPEnology then there might be a sleep wake problem for hibernation of disks (more on that later.) I also don't have a shared network port enabled under iLO. The iLO network tweaks are probably not required but it improved my configuration.

 

Third thing you may want to double check after firmware is that your BIOS settings are set correctly including the correct time:

System Options>

  • Embedded NICs: Network boot disabled for both (unless you PXE boot from the Network)
  • USB Options>Removable Flash Media Boot Sequence: Internal DriveKeys First (that is where XPEnology lives)
  • SATA Controller Options>Embedded SATA Configuration: Enable SATA AHCI Support
  • SATA Controller Options>Drive Write Cache: Disabled

 

Power Management Options>

  • HP Power Profile: Set to Custom
  • HP Power Regulator: OS Control Mode

Power Management Options>Advanced Power Management Options:

  • Intel QPI Link Power Management: Enabled
  • Minimum Processor Idle Power Core State: C1E State
  • Minimum Processor Idle Power Package State: Package C6 (retention) State
  • Maximum Memory Bus Frequency: I set mine to 1333MHz (This depends on your RAM)
  • Memory Interleaving: Full Interleaving
  • PCI-E Gen 3 Control: I disabled mine because I have no use for it, helps with power draw. If you have something  plugged in don't disable.
  • Dynamic Power Savings Mode Response: Fast
  • Collaborative Power Control: Enabled
  • DIMM Voltage Preference: Optimized for Power, again this depends on your RAM

 

Server Availability>

  • Wake-On LAN: Enabled
  • Thermal Shutdown: Enabled
  • Power Button: Enabled
  • Automatic Power-On: Restore Last Power State

Advanced Options>Advanced System ROM Options>

  • MPS Table Mode: Full Table APIC
  • Power-On Logo: Disabled, it speeds up the bootup time and still has a prompt for F9 to get into BIOS.

 

Leave everything else alone or set to your specific preferences if you know what you are doing, double check the BIOS date and time and then save your settings to get back into DSM.

 

DSM settings:

There are a lot of things that can affect your overall power draw and performance to keep your drives from properly going to sleep, read this page to understand the implications of certain packages.

Control Panel>

  • Regional Options>Time: Set the correct time zone, and click update now. Don't worry about NTP Service unless you use Surveillance Station.

Performance: Uncheck Memory Compression. Will trigger a reboot.

Hardware & Power>

  • General: Everything is ticked, except the Fan Speed Mode.
  • Power Schedule: Leave this alone for now.
  • HDD Hibernation: I do 10 Minutes on both and enable Hibernation logs. Not checking Enable auto poweroff for now.

 

Info Center>

  • Service: Double check you don't have anything running that could affect sleep and wake, for example SMB is the only service running but it could act as a Master Browser which would affect the hibernation so I have it disabled.

 

Another thing I prefer to do on my box is completely remove Universal Search:

SSH into the NAS and run these commands:
sudo -s
synopkg uninstall SynoFinder

I don't have any media indexing going on but that may be a factor as well.

 

Other thoughts:

Splitting up your hard drive disk groups could have an effect on what your hibernation looks like, check the logs, about half your drives may hibernate while others won't, it depends on the services running and many other factors that are far too much to name here.

 

If you want the unit to go into a complete power off/on state try a package called Advanced Power Manager. I swear by this package and confirmed that it works on both my DS216+II, and XPEnology bare metal Gen8. There are many advanced functions that you can tweak that affect how your NAS "Sleeps" so explore it.

 

Wake-on-LAN works if I have the unit go into an auto-poweroff state, but I use my Router to send a wake request to get it back up to where it was.

 

I am using BTRFS but have not noticed any overworked HDD's crunching data into the night, everything remains stable and quiet and my fan speeds have gone down to 19% and idle is sitting well below 39w.

 

Did I mention time is a factor to your hibernation? Make sure that your BIOS time and Synology DSM times are in sync, otherwise your 10 minute hibernation will never happen.

 

I hope I helped somebody in these forums, and answered my own question at the same time.

 

 

 

 

Edited by mr9v9
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  • 6 months later...
  • 4 years later...
Posted (edited)

Hi Experts ... 

My HP gen 8 contains 4 HDD with 6TB each. ARC Loader, latest DSM (DSM 7.2.1-69057 Update 4)

 

when creating a Pool and Volume for each Disk separately is working!

but creating a RAID5 or RAID1 and initializing , I get error message:

 

==> the BIOS settings are equal to  mr9v9 settings !

 

Any ideas what's wrong

 

thx & best regards 

keasee

Bildschirmfoto 2024-03-06 um 12.16.31.png

Bildschirmfoto 2024-03-06 um 12.11.54.png

Edited by keasee
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