HP ProLiant SmartArray P400 (SAS-RAID)

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athlon1.2

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Long story short one of these cards lands on my desk for free. I understand that per the specs this controller can be used with SATA drives. Sure, SATA drives won´t perform the best, but compared to an adaptec 2410SA the performance must be better.

How can I attach SATA drives to this? The original intent was to use in ProLiant ML380 servers which have a SAS hotswap backplane, there are one two connectors on the card but it supports 8 drives.

And does anyone know if I **NEED** RAM in the card, or can I run it without?

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/...ge/arraycontrollers/smartarrayp400/index.html
 
If you use RAID-5 then definitely put RAM in it. If you use RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-10, then it's not as important but can still help. If you get the RAM then you want a battery for it, too.
 
Yeah RAID 5 speeds are definitly faster with the BBWC because it enables cache writing.
 
Yes, you likely do need memory in the slot on the card for it to operate. There are two types of memory modules for those cards. One is a stick of memory with a battery attached to it and one without. The one without is what the basic models ship with and usually has either 256 or 512Mb of memory, it supports caching for read operations only. The second module comes in the same 256/512MB sizes and has a battery which maintains the contents of the memory if there is loss of power to the server during operation. You need the battery backed write cache module if you want to be able to use/turn on write caching on the array controller which makes a huge difference for write performance in general and is pretty much critical for raid 5 performance on writes.
 
athlon1.2 said:
Long story short one of these cards lands on my desk for free. I understand that per the specs this controller can be used with SATA drives. Sure, SATA drives won´t perform the best, but compared to an adaptec 2410SA the performance must be better.

How can I attach SATA drives to this? The original intent was to use in ProLiant ML380 servers which have a SAS hotswap backplane, there are one two connectors on the card but it supports 8 drives.

And does anyone know if I **NEED** RAM in the card, or can I run it without?

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/...ge/arraycontrollers/smartarrayp400/index.html
Click to expand...

You will need and SFF 8484 to 4 X SATA cable to run SATA drives just like the Perc 5. Link

Don't spend more than 20 bux for 1.

Since it is designed specifically for their servers, you may need to provide additional cooling to the processor chip on the controller.

There are some Auctions on Ebay for memory too.

Don
 
dandragonrage said:
If you use RAID-5 then definitely put RAM in it. If you use RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-10, then it's not as important but can still help. If you get the RAM then you want a battery for it, too.
Click to expand...

Yep, I read that in the manual :)

I did install the card it was assigned an IRQ but no RAID BIOS came up... I noticed there are no memory chips on the card.

Do you know if the BBWC memory modules will work w/o a battery?
 
Well this isn't going to work for a 1U server due to the placement of the SAS connector. Only will work in a tower case or 2U case w/ mini slots. Anyone want a cheap P400 card?
 
I would love a cheap RAID card. I'm not sure the P400 is great, but cheap is cheap :)

But before you get rid of it, how come it won't work in a 1U server? Is it just because the free slot is right up against the side of the case or something? If so you might be able to get right angled cables to fit - these are like the regular SFF-8484 cables you need, but have the cable coming out along the side of the connector, not along the long top edge.

If this would help but I'm not being clear I can try and find you a link.

edit: somthing like SAS-84RA7P/.5m from http://www.cs-electronics.com/sas-cables.htm should work in most situations. Don't know pricing etc, not affiliated, YMMV, blah, blah...
 
I haven't had my morning coffee! Do you know how thick/deep the SAS connector is? I will post a picture later tonight to illustrate what I am talking about
 
If you mean the thickness of the connector (ie the narrowest dimension on it) then I would estimate around 10mm (1/2 inch or so if you are Stateside). I can't find a drawing with dimensions, but the sideways cable looks to roughly double the thickness of the bare connector. These bare connectors are 6mm (1/4") thick (or at least the ones I have are).

Is this what you meant? How much space do you have in your server?
 
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