HP DL320e Gen8, 3TB drives, Windows Server 2012 R2 - HDD full capacity alocation difficulties during installation

Question

One interesting task to do but not so easy as i thought.

The server is HP DL320e gen8, The main difficulty is with partitioning the RAID1 (2x3TB HDDs) during the installation on 2 partitions (System = 200GB and Data = the rest of the space ~ 2.7TB) and all this under Windows Server 2012 R2 installation.

I tried using Diskpart on the partitioning step of the installation, by converting the drive to GPT and creating all the needed partitions for the system, but with no availability to continue the installation using this partitioning method.

And doing all this I think it's going to a dead end ...

If someone have any suggestions I'd be rather happy to discuss them. Thank you in advance!

Solution 1

One commonly overlooked feature of HP Smart Array RAID controllers is the ability to create multiple logical drives on the same group of physical disks (array)...

This is mainly because the BIOS-based Option ROM Configuration of Arrays (ORCA) utility doesn't have this functionality, so many people miss out on the enhanced feature set.

The example below shows 4 x 900GB disks in an array, carved into a 72GB RAID 1+0 OS drive and a 500GB RAID 1+0 data drive. (You can also mix RAID levels on the same group of disks!)

Smart Array P420i in Slot 0 (Embedded)    (sn: 00143802113BC70)

   array A (SAS, Unused Space: 2262353  MB)


      logicaldrive 1 (72.0 GB, RAID 1+0, OK)
      logicaldrive 2 (500.0 GB, RAID 1+0, OK)

      physicaldrive 1I:2:1 (port 1I:box 2:bay 1, SAS, 900.1 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:2:2 (port 1I:box 2:bay 2, SAS, 900.1 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:2:3 (port 1I:box 2:bay 3, SAS, 900.1 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:2:4 (port 1I:box 2:bay 4, SAS, 900.1 GB, OK)

   SEP (Vendor ID PMCSIERA, Model SRCv8x6G) 380 (WWID: 500143802113BC7F)

What I would do in your case is load the HP SSA offline bootable DVD and create a logical drive for your operating system. Load it.

You can then choose to create another logical drive (or more) for your data. Each HP Smart Array Logical Drive presents a new block device to the operating system.

Solution 2

At the very least you've got a B120i disk controller in there, just use that to manage the R1 array by pressing F5 during the boot cycle at the point when it's dealing with the disks. Just setup the two disks to act as one R1 array, it's really very straightforward. Then Windows will see just one disk, partition that as you wish and install the HP SSP so that all the drivers are in place to alert you in case of any failures on the disks.

Comments

[Chopper3]

Gen8's have ACU in bios :)

[ewwhite]

@Chopper3 HP Intelligent Provisioning is broken on many shipping Gen8 servers. It's critical to update it to version 1.40 or greater (1.60 is the current release). The path of least resistance in this case may be to use the CD.

[networkpro]

Yep the Intelligent Provisioning it's not working properly when I'm loading Windows media disk. Also tried to upgrade from HP IP 1.50 to HP IP 1.60 with no success even using separate CD with the iso loaded on it or even HP SP CD.

[ewwhite]

@networkpro I would suggest creating a logical drive of the right size... Do you understand what I explained in my answer?

[networkpro]

Yep with no difficulties I'll try it after couple of hours and leave a feedback.

[networkpro]

@ewwhite It worked like a charm as you said overlooked feature in the smart raid. Thank you!

[ewwhite]

@networkpro You're welcome.