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Xpenology on HP ML350p G8


shagnasty

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Hi Guys

 

First NOOB ALERT!!!!!

 

Just thought I'd share a recent build.

 

I have a pile of Xpenology systems up for both CCTV use and Nakivo Backup and they work well with hardware spec leagues above anything Synology provide.

 

I do have a pile of Synology kit and rate it highly until you need brute for performance.

 

My goto builds are Intel X56xx Xeons, 12GB (ram is SO cheap for these any less seems silly) in either SuperMicro (handy as they have Intel Nics which are the easiest to re-program the MAC on) boxes or HP Blades servers.

 

But today a client wanted a quite, fast Nakivo device.

 

So enter a HP Proliant ML350p (in Tower as they have no racks and it sits in their studio) single E5-1620 V2 4C 3G7Hz CPU, 4x4GB 1600r Ram, 6 x 6TB SAS HDDs, Intel 520 Dual 10GB/s Nic.

 

My first move was to place the onboard HP P420i Smart array into IT mode, which had several issues, first my DS3617XS load couldn't see the drives and second as soon as the OS booted all the fans went to full speed and nearly blew on of my kittens off the bench!

 

Bit of a poke around in HP ILO, the P420i was showing as a "failed" storage device, which is reason enough for the HP to send the fans to rocket mode!

 

So enter plan 2, a LSI 9217i HBA board, this needs longer SFF-8087 cables than the supplied ones.

 

The intel X520 Nic works off the bat (obviously after a MAC re-program) and I did have the onboard Quad 1GB/s Nic disabled in bios.

 

I've got a 30GB SSD in there as my "Boot" drive, this is on the CDrom SATA cable with the controller set to AHCI mode in bios, this let me play around with SAS config without a complete reload every time.

 

Just as a check I added a HP SAS expander ( 487738-001 468405-002 use HP SPP to flash up to to 6GB/s if you buy and old one) which works fine, this let you hang 32 SAS or SATA HDDs (28 internal 4 on an external SFF 8088 connector) off a single port on the LSi, so you could have 32 internal drives as the LSi still has a spare port, with 2 Expanders you can get to 64 drives.

 

Note this would work for SATA drive, BUT you must have a SAS HBA to the expander as you can endpoint SATA onto a SAS bus, but not connect SAS kit onto a SATA bus.

 

I would suggest a Netapp box with IOM6 controllers would be a better option than ramming 64HDDs into a chassis and trying to power them!

 

I currently waiting for the array build so i can compare this to Ubuntu on the same hardware using HP hardware r5.

 

The reason for the Xpenology build was the client has several Synology NAS devices (like 6!) and feels happier managing the backup device from the GUI than the Linux Shell.

 

I hope this is vaguely use for someone, I have learnt a lot from this space......

 

One question, anyone have a utility to change the MAC on Broardcom Nic without using Ethtool?

 

S

 

 

 

 

 

 

Screenshot 2021-03-27 220754.jpg

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1 hour ago, Hackschnitzel09 said:

Did anyone ever get the system running with the p420i?

i tested the hpsa.ko driver in my last extra.lzma with a p410 (that does not support hba mode) as raid1 single disk and the driver seemed to work as it was loaded (dis not crash) and found the disk

the P420 should be switchable into hba mode and should work with disks in the same way as the lsi sas hba'a in IT mode

you might need to boot with a service linux to switch the p420 into hba mode as (afaik) that one does not have a switch in the controller bios (later P4xx might have that)

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22 hours ago, IG-88 said:

The P420 should be switchable into hba mode and should work with disks in the same way as the lsi sas hba'a in IT mode

you might need to boot with a service linux to switch the p420 into hba mode as (afaik) that one does not have a switch in the controller bios (later P4xx might have that)

I was able to switch the P420i into the hba mode. Hba is recognized while booting but the 3617xs loader does not find the drives. In iLO the drives are shown under the physical view. Do I need to format the drives in a certain way or should I try another loader?

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23 hours ago, Hackschnitzel09 said:

I also noticed a stick with Linux mint does not boot if a drive is installed. 

that sounds like the driver is producing a kernel panic, you would be able to monitor it with iLO and the virtual com port (dsm does all the things on serial console)

i only can test with what i have and p410 was the best i got for free lately (and its kind of hard to use on a non HPE system as it needs the bios to support switching off storage bios extension to boot the system at all)

we are struggling with the p4xx for a long time and gave up about 2 years ago and i just added the driver from the kernel (that should at least give some basic support and it did with the p410 in raid mode)

maybe a newer driver from external source can do the trick, it will be in the next extra.lzma if it passes the test with the p410 in raid mode

 

 

On 3/31/2021 at 6:34 PM, Hackschnitzel09 said:

Do I need to format the drives in a certain way or should I try another loader?

no if its working it should just recognize the drives without configuring anything (beside the hba mode), if it does not the driver is not working properly

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