[OpenIndiana-discuss] OI on HP Gen 10 Microserver

Fri Feb 17 14:12:43 UTC 2023

Are there no M.2 Slots or PCI slots on the Gen10+?

If you want an SSD a PCIe M.2 SSD Card is your best and most performant 
option. You can also use it as L2ARC for the spinning rust if you take 
two Adapters and with 2 SSD's each for example. One thing of note 
though. Be absolutely certain your RAID controller is in HBA mode and at 
best buy a dedicated HBA instead to avoid drive weirdness and slowness. 
ZFS does not like RAID controllers at all.

-Till

On 16.02.23 23:44, Michelle wrote:
> Hi Rolf,
> 
> Thanks for this.
> 
> What I find interesting is that looking at the data sheet, etc. there
> is no clear indication that two are 6G and 2 are 3G. They aren't
> exactly up front about it.
> 
> That's what's worrying me about the 10+, I can't find anything that
> spells it out what the ports are capable of.
> 
> However, it does appear that the 10 is a Marvell controller and doesn't
> advertise raid 5, whereas the 10+ is a Smart Array S100i controller and
> supports raid 5, so I would have believed that they will all be 6G. If
> they advertised RAID 5 and one of the drives was operating at half the
> speed, then they'd likely be in for a bit of a backlash I would have
> thought.
> 
> The only way to find out for sure... if someone doesn't already know...
> is to wait until I've got it, put some drives in and see what the BIOS
> says that the drives are connected at.
> 
> At the moment, given the bug that Carsten mentioned with booting rpool
> from USB, I'm thinking of using one bay for SSD (with an SFF LFF
> adaptor caddy) and the other three for the spinning rust. Backup drives
> will just have to be attached by USB 3 caddy, I guess.
> 
> Michelle.
> 
> On Thu, 2023-02-16 at 22:21 +0100, Rolf M. Dietze wrote:
>> Hi Michelle,
>>
>> don't know about the G10+ boxes. I meant:
>> https://buy.hpe.com/uk/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/hpe-proliant-microserver-gen10/p/1009955118
>> and with that issue of 2 ports 6G and 2 ports 3G I rather looked into
>> boxes from other manufacturers than HP to recomend them to customers.
>>
>> With the older Gen10 boxes one needs .NET for a console via the build
>> in system controler, even if you purchase the advanced license. Since
>> there is no windows in the net at all, I set them up on a KVM server
>> and never bought any boxes fom HP because of this rather flimsy
>> design
>> (no console via systemcontroller, 6G/3G sata ports)
>>
>> But if I have to choose between OI and FreeBSD and what experiences
>> running OI as a server OS on those boxes, I go for OI and that was
>> the original discussion
>>
>> regs, Rolf
>>
>>
>> Quoting Michelle <michelle at msknight.com>:
>>
>>> The target server is actually going to be the Gen 10 Plus...
>>> https://uk-new.ingrammicro.com/site/productdetail?id=2M2SBG9
>>>
>>> The specs are light on the exact specs of the speed, but the manual
>>> doesn't help either...
>>> https://www.serversdirect.co.uk/PDFs/P16006-421_1_7006250_Original.pdf?v=27
>>>
>>> The best they say is... "The embedded HPE Smart Array S100i SR
>>> Gen10
>>> Controller supports SATA drive installation. This controller
>>> supports
>>> RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10" ... and it would be a bit odd for them
>>> to
>>> support RAID levels like that and have two ports down to 3Gbs.
>>>
>>> Grateful for any insight.
>>>
>>> Michelle.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, 2023-02-16 at 19:55 +0100, rmd wrote:
>>>> Hi
>>>>
>>>> it depends a bit on the BIOS version of the Gen 10. With the
>>>> early
>>>> version
>>>> it works best, pulling all disks out of the bays, do the install,
>>>> reboot, halt
>>>> again, put the drives back in, repower and boot, then do the disk
>>>> configs.
>>>>
>>>> With my Gen 10, I put a 4i4o SAS-controler in it, plug the sas-
>>>> plug
>>>> of the
>>>> internal drive bays on the i-cnector of that additional 4i4o sas
>>>> card
>>>> and
>>>> connect SSDs with a fan out cable to the on board sas connector.
>>>> With
>>>> a bit of soldering an additional power connector for the SSDs is
>>>> simply
>>>> set up an the OS goes on those SSDs. Hence, the Gen10 supports
>>>> only
>>>> 2 diskbays with 6G througput and the other two bays only support
>>>> 3G.
>>>>
>>>> regs, Rolf
>>>>
>>>>> On Feb 16, 2023, at 9:34 AM, Michelle <michelle at msknight.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> One of my older servers has died and I'm looking to replace
>>>>> with a
>>>>> Gen
>>>>> 10 microserver.
>>>>>
>>>>> On my N54L, there are four bays, but a top CD bay where the
>>>>> operating
>>>>> system drive sits with OI on it, leaving me with four bays for
>>>>> spinning
>>>>> rust.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, on the Gen 10 I've looked at the motherboard and I
>>>>> can't
>>>>> see
>>>>> anything other than a USB connector and the SATA harness
>>>>> connector.
>>>>> I
>>>>> can't see a DVD/CD drive either.
>>>>>
>>>>> Has anyone managed to get OI on another drive, or am I going to
>>>>> have to
>>>>> take up a bay for the OS drive please?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for any hints and advice,
>>>>>
>>>>> Michelle.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org
>>>>> https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>>>>
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>>
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