[CentOS] CentOS on HP DL360e with B120i

Fri Jan 10 18:04:22 UTC 2014
Tony Mountifield <tony at softins.co.uk>

In article <39999DB8-81B1-42E9-AD03-161F3C68DBC0 at me.com>,
Nathan Duehr <denverpilot at me.com> wrote:
> 
> On Jan 8, 2014, at 3:13 AM, John Doe <jdmls at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > From: John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>
> > 
> >> On 1/7/2014 10:39 AM, Tony Mountifield wrote:
> >>> I am trying to install CentOS5 on a new HP DL360e G8 with B120i disk
> >>> controller. It appears that a proprietary HP driver is needed for it.
> >> 
> >> fwiw, centos 6.recent should recognize that controller, I know it 
> >> supports the P420i thats in the DL??0p Gen8 systems.
> > 
> > AFAIK, B120i is a fake raid that needs an hp driver...
> > 
> > /begin_rant
> > The same that is in the microserver g8 I sadly just bought...
> > Sadly because: fake raid, no driver for 6.5 (yet) => kernel panic on 6.5.
> > And, the icing on the cake: if you use AHCI instead, the so called super silent server sounds like an hair drier
> (drives temperature is only reported by the RAID drivers, so without RAID, they force the fan to a set speed...
> apparently close to 5 times the average speed: 6% => 30%)!
> > HP response: do not use AHCI... product works as expected...
> > /end_of_rant
> > 
> > Good: hp raid utilities and compatible with other hardware hp raid controllers if you upgrade later.
> > Bad: install annoyances, dependance on driver to be up to date with OS release, and AHCI + mdraid is more portable?
> 
> Agreed. If you need the same server with the supported 410 card, buy the DL360p series, and not the DL360e series.

Interesting. Not normally using HP, I didn't realise the difference.
The last ones I had a few years ago did have the 410.

> I have one machine that's an e-series, purchased by accident, and it loaded fine with the proprietary driver, but I'm
> sure it will be a minor headache going forward.  HP went the cheap/bad route with the e-series.

OK, well we'll have to see how it goes. I found the proprietary driver
was only available for 64-bit, and only up to C5.9. I'm currently using
32-bit with PAE, so I've turned off the B120i and just using AHCI with
kernel RAID instead.

Cheers
Tony
-- 
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony at softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony at mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org