HP SAS Expander Owner's Thread

That sounds like the way to go about it then...
No need to dual link the expander with a bunch of wd greens really...
 
What kind of disks you have or rotational speed has less to do with whether to Dual Path (aka dual link) or not. Mostly it depends on your usage scenario and what kind of SAS controller you're driving the disks with. Striped arrays really benefit from dual path, meaning ZFS or a capable SAS-2 hardware RAID controller will see much faster build/rebuild/scrub times - example 16 x 2TB drives in RAID6 took 9 hours to initialize with Dual Path instead of 16 hours with single path in one of my early Areca 1880i tests. However if you're running a non-striping scheme like JBOD's then you're not likely to be hitting enough of them simultaneously to benefit from the extra bandwidth.
 
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I'm getting two M1015's from that deal, going to run two in the same system untill I can afford the HP SAS expander, replacing a 3ware 9500S-12 + mobo ports (giving me a whopping 490MB/s read, 220MB/s write on 16x1.5TB LP drives in mdraid6...)
 
Anyone tested dual link (link aggregation) on any HP cards like the P411 or P410? Would be nice to know if the P411 is supported since then I can use them instead of buying extra Areca cards.
 
Adaptec 5445 (FW 18252) + HP Expander (FW 2.08) work well together. They negotiate at 3GB/s. I am using the External IN port.

I do not consider myself qualified to say the 5000 series with firmware 18252 will work on all cards, just letting people know what is working for me.
 
Hey guys I just got my HP SAS Expander and I have a question.

I've not yet got my RAID card so I can't test things myself yet to see what configuration works but I'm wondering how would I connect 30 drives to this?

Which ports should I use for Drives and which port should I connect to my RAID card? (I only intend to use single link to the RAID card)

Thanks for reading :)
 
odditory said:
Read post #1
Click to expand...

I expected to get a reply like this. But I did read the first post. Over and over again.

How can I connect 30 drives to the expander if I'm using one of those connectors meaning there is only 28 on the controller for my use.

The first post does not explain. If I use the external connector on the expander can I then use all 8 internal SAS ports for hard disks?

I'm not clear on it. I also downloaded the HP manual and googled but it isn't clear in what configuration would enable me to use 30 or 32 disks on the expander. It's left ambiguous. I just wan't a little clarification :)
 
There's no one way to do it. You can connect up to 32 drives any way you want, you have a total of 9 miniSAS connectors to choose from - 1 external and 8 internal - how you connect your drives and controller is up to you. Any combination works. As stated in the OP think of it like an ethernet switch. With 30 drives, if you want all the internal connectors going to drives then obviously you need to use the external SFF-8088 to connect the SAS controller, and if you need to use one of the internal connectors on the expander to connect the SAS controller, then you'll have to loop the external connector back into the case and use something like an SFF-8087 to SFF-8088 Adapter + SFF-8088 cable.

And forget the HP manual, that's why this thread was created was because the official docs were sketchy, vague and in some aspects erroneous; remember HP never intended for this card to be used outside of their HP server market and in combination with their own raid controllers, and their documentation was written accordingly.
 
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I did the dual link for the hell of it. Right now im in a norco rpc-4224, with a m1015 dual linked to a hp sas expander.
I didnt need the extra port on the expander for the norco anyways, and i got a cable for it.
Im just happy all my parts came with compatible firmware.

How do i know what firmware my hp sas expander has on it?
Couldnt get my m1015 flashed to IT, hope that doesnt affect anything.

I did have a problem, when i plugged my m1015 into a few ports, it would say invalid sas topology?
I thought they were like switches and could be plugged into any of the ports?

PS.
To answer your question...Im just going to fill it with 3tb consumer drives, but its good to know rebuilds are faster with dual links!
 
Hey guys. I have a norco 4220 already and a areca 1880i on the way. I have a couple of quick questions.

Has anyone seen the blue pcb for the hp sas expander? I have seen a few but unsure if these are the same as the green pcb hardware revision.

Is it possible to negotiate 6gb for sata3 drives?

Does anyone know the best place to purchase an expander card from? Shipping will need to be to Australia and everything sold local is extremely overpriced!

Thanks
 
KNOWN ISSUES
1) HP SAS Expander will only negotiate SATA-III harddisks at 3G (SATA300) even though it is capable of 6G (SATA600). It does however negotiate SAS disks at 6G.

I think this hasn't been resolved yet.
 
Just curious: If you have the SAS Expander with old firmware that only negotiates 1.5Gb/3Gb and not 6Gb and you plug in a Hard Disk which negotiates 6Gb/ps will that drive still work and run at the lower speeds or will the card not work with that drive at all?

To me I would expect the drive to still work and simply run at the slower 3Gb/ps speed but with products of this nature it's best not to assume. I ask because I have this card but not yet a RAID Card to go with it and so I am unable to check the firmware on the card yet, I expect it to be before the 6Gb/ps firmware was released though. It's a green PCB but I can't find any date markings on the card from when it was manufactured.
 
Vicey said:
Just curious: If you have the SAS Expander with old firmware that only negotiates 1.5Gb/3Gb and not 6Gb and you plug in a Hard Disk which negotiates 6Gb/ps will that drive still work and run at the lower speeds or will the card not work with that drive at all?
Click to expand...

That's not going to happen.
This is why it is called "negotiate". All affected componentes will talk to each other about the possible speeds whereas the faster components are always able to reduce the speed and they will match their speed to the speed of the slowest component which is taking part.

Example:

Your old raidcontroller / HBA supports SAS 3G, your expander with possibly older firmware does 3G as well and your brand new drives are able to do 6G (SAS2, SATA3 drives will be negotiated to 3G anyway because of a bug).
Controller and expander will go for their native speed of 3G while the expander and your drive realize they would normally use different speeds which isn't possible. In this case the drive will go down to 3G which the expander will report do the controller.

Another example:

Your new raidcontroller / HBA supports SAS 6G, your expander with recent firmware does 6G as well and your old drives are able to do 1.5G (SATA1) and 3G (SAS or SATA2).
Controller and expander will go again for their native speed of 6G while the expander and your drives realize they would normally use different speeds which isn't possible. In this case the drives will go down to 1.5G and 3G.

The thing is that the connection between controller and expander is far more important that the ones between expander and drives. Even SATA1 at 1.5G is in terms of its capacity beyond what nearly all drives, except solid state drives, can do.
That's why it is far more important to keep the uplinks big enough which is usually the case at 3G and 1.5G doesn't exist anyway in the SAS world.
 
Thank you for the reply JensS - I expected what you said but I was thinking maybe there would be some kind of bug or HP limitation that wouldn't make it work at all with 6Gb Disks. You know how the computer world is sometimes what should happen doesn't in the real world.

Glad to know that if I get a bunch of SATAIII disks I won't have any problems as I know for sure I won't have the ability to upgrade the firmware on my expander as I won't be using a HP RAID Card with my expander.
 
Your SATA3 disks will run at 3G regardless of the firmware version of the expander. It is always a good idea to keep the firmware up to date though.
Even though you won't use a HP controller in the end, which is perfectly acceptable, you should consider connecting the expander at least once to a HP controller to update the firmware to v2.08.
If you don't have access to a HP controller you could ask for help here to look for someone living close to you who can do it for you.
 
I am attempting to use a Perc 6/e card, with an HP SaS expander in a norco 4224.
The controller see's the drives, however, creating an array seems to be an issue.
When I go to create an array, choosing 0-6, selecting the drives for it, then creating the size, the card does not auto fill in the field for size of selected drives.
If it does list the size, it lists the size of one drive, not all the drives.
Manually entering the expected size, does not improve anything as the field is cleared upon leaving it.
I can problem fill in more information, I am really looking to get some help here.
 
In the old days, SCSI Raid cards were a disaster when you tried to hook up a tape drive to them. Mostly Adaptec but also LSI and ATTO, I could never get it right even if the card just had RAID0. Only a straight 29160 or its like would work right, otherwise I would get horrible write rates (300MB/sec vs expected 5000GB/Sec) even if it were the only thing on the channel, (or even the whole card) and not in RAID mode . I now have an HP SAS LTO4 backup drive hooked up to a straight SAS HBA and it works fine. I just ordered an 1880i and an HP SAS Expander. I intend to have the 1880i dual linked to the expander, 24 Drives in 2 RAID6's leaving me the external SAS port. Have any of you ever tried a SAS LTO backup drive in this orientation? Does it have the same problems as U320 used to with a RAID card? Thanks!
 
ciscokid454 said:
Is the HP 411 or areca 1680/1880 the preferred card of choice for the expander?
Click to expand...

The Areca cards are probably (much) faster.. but depends on what you will be using it for.
If it's just for storage, then I don't think you would see any difference in terms of performance. You'd be limited by the network (gigabit) connection anyways..
 
Any idea if I can flash this SAS expander using a HP P400 raid card?
Anyone tried, by any chance?

I do not have P212, P410, P411, or P712 and I wouldn't want to buy one just so I could flash the SAS expander to latest version..
 
Just for the record: the expander works fine with the LSI 8408E.
Intels SRCSAS144e works too, both flashed with Intels and LSI 8344ELP firmware. Expander connected either via internal or external port but not both at the same time.

Flaws: On both controllers drives only negotiate at 1.5G and "LED blinking" to find a drive does not work.

Does anyone know if HDD standby when idle works with a LSISAS2108 based card and the expander? Specifically LSI 9260-8i. But any other controller with RAID6 and HDD standby support is welcome, too :)
 
MarcusXP said:
Any idea if I can flash this SAS expander using a HP P400 raid card?
Anyone tried, by any chance?

I do not have P212, P410, P411, or P712 and I wouldn't want to buy one just so I could flash the SAS expander to latest version..
Click to expand...

If it worked it would be in the OP.
 
Just as you could physically install a PCI-X card into a PCI slot if there was the requisite physical clearance in front of the slot, can I install the expander in a x1 slot if it has the same clearance?
 
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Should work if the PCIe x1 slot is "open". From what I've heard, it just gets power from the PCIe-Bus, so you don't need the x4 or x8 lanes. If you don't have an open PCIe x1 port, you can also get a PCIe x1 to PCIe x16 adapter for a few bucks. Don't try to open it on your own. Tried that last week and killed a board (whoops!) - luckily a cheap desktop board.
 
|Night| said:
eather raid 6 or 60, but does the adaptec 6808 work with this hp sas expanader?
Click to expand...
Adaptec 6808? you mean 6805 ? if so, it should work! i running 6805 + HP SAS Expander with 5EE (work perfect for couple of months now.
 
Any chance in updating the firmware on my proliant dl360 G4p with a Smart Array P600 controller?
 
Even if you have the optional PCIe cage to convert one PCI-X slot to PCIe (which you have to do since the other port has to be PCI-X for the P600 anyway) it won't work because the controller and the expander aren't compatible.
It only works with the SmartArray controller mentioned in the specs by HP.
 
I have the expander in another chassis, it just gets power from the PCI slot anyway right? I figured I would ask about the compatibility because HP's site only listed the ~400 series card but the OP lists many more.
 
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A lot of people have been looking for a solution on how to power their expander, especially if they are out of slots. For a lot of people with only 2x 16x slots (your video card in 1 and your SAS HBA/Raid Controller in the other)this is a good solution. And, at less than 4 bucks delivered, it couldn't be cheaper.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-Exten...936?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c8d5b458

Takes power from a spare PCIe x1 slot, and has enough slack for me to move it to the 8th slot area on a Fractal XL. If you don't have an 8th slot, you can either jury-rig it into an empty motherboard slot cover or even put it in a 5 1/4" Drive bay if you build a small mount. I now have it working because I needed 4 PCIe x4 or bigger slots and I only had 3. Video In first, Areca Raid in second, HP SAS HBA for an LTO5 tape drive in third and this extender in an empty x1 powering the expander.
 
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Do the Areca 1880 series cards support the forwarding of a drive failure message to a backplane connected through the HP SAS Expander?

I'm considering the Areca 1880i (8 Port) to go with my HP SAS Expander.
 
@VulcaN: Operating the expander in a different chassis makes no difference sadly. The controller just isn't compatible. Only the latest generation of HP SAS controllers will work which not only includes the 400-series but excludes the 600-series for sure.
You can still give it a go and proof us and HP wrong but I won't bet on it working at all.

The memory for the SmartArray controllers isn't a regular DDR or DDR2 DIMM. You need the specific HP part.
 
Okay and is it required to have that "optional" (according to HP) 256mb module installed in the P212 controller (this seems like the cheapest one that has been verified to work?) for simply updating the firmware on the expander?

Thanks for the help!!
 
According to HP specs it is required.
Thats all I can say about it because I didn't have any SmartArrays without cache anyway.
According to the description of the P212 on eBay you linked to it already comes with cache so you don't need to worry about it.

As it is usual on eBay these days you have to be careful with the description of the auctioned item though. This is even more the case when going for HP hardware for mainly two reasons:

1. The seller isn't familiar with HP hardware and HP's system of partnumbers and so on and is therefore not able to describe an item correctly.
2. The seller IS familiar with HP hardware and HP's system of partnumbers but hopes you are not to exploit your missing knowledge.

That means specifically for your P212 auction:

The title says "HP 462594-001 p212/256mb SAS CTR 3GB PCI-E Storage Controller".
If we just take this line apart there is an interesting and an uninteresting part.

Uninteresting: "HP" and "SAS CTR 3GB PCI-E Storage Controller".
This is stuff we already know since it is common with all P212 controllers. It is from HP and it is a SAS controller with 3 GBit/s and PCIe Interface.

Interesting: "462594-001" "p212/256mb"
P212/256 refers to a P212 with 256 MB Cache. The picture of the item shows that cache module on the controller as well but it isn't an actual photo of the item so we are already in a sort of gray area.
And that is because of the 462594-001. This isn't a HP Option # (they usually don't end on -001) so this is very likely to be the Spares # of the naked controller board without cache.
The HP PartSurfer says this is "SAS controller board - For use in the Smart Array P212". The description isn't always helpful but I think the naked controller board is meant.

Now look again at the two main reasons stated above. You can't really tell which is the case here so you have to be careful.

Quite a story I just wrote, that wasn't planned. But maybe this helps you on your search for a SmartArray to update your expander.
 
Thanks Jens, I emailed a few ebay sellers to get them to confirm / deny the module coming with the card. You'd think you wouldnt need cache just to update firmware hahah way to go HP
 
No problem, you're welcome!
I'm not sure if there actually is a technical reason for having cache on your controller. But as it is usual with these big companies selling you "solutions" they don't clarify these cases.
Might be a technical reason, might be a marketing reason or might be both.
 
Hi - any news on the blue PCB for the HP SAS expander? I have seen a few of these on ebay over the past few weeks and don't know if they will be the same as the green PCB's recommended on this forum.
 
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