upgrade for HP server
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I'm rebuilding my HP DL380p Gen8 from the ground up (software wise).
I'm looking over my config and I have an integrated P420i RAID controller with 512 Meg cache onboard battery backup, 25% Read/75% Write
I'm wondering if it's worth buying something like a P812, seen here on ebay.
Is it worth it?
I have eight HP 300GB 6G SAS 10K SFF SC Enterprise HDD 652564-B21 in RAID 10
Since the server is currently inactive, I want to run some IOPs tests on it as well.
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@Dashrender said:
HP DL380p Gen8
Looking over some of the pricing on eBay for one seems that they are still in good standing for now.
A investment of of $120 (shipping) isn't that much to to do.
I'd say something like that should be acceptable.
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From what I can tell, the only thing I gain is going from 512 Megs RAM to 1 GB. The P812 can handle more drives, sure, but I doubt I will ever install an external DAS chassis
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No, not worth it. Except for more cache, the "power" of a RAID card is all lost unless you are doing RAID 6, and then only on large arrays. Or if you have so many SSDs that you are overrunning a lesser card.
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@Dashrender said:
From what I can tell, the only thing I gain is going from 512 Megs RAM to 1 GB. The P812 can handle more drives, sure, but I doubt I will ever install an external DAS chassis
You can get more memory on your 400 series as well.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
From what I can tell, the only thing I gain is going from 512 Megs RAM to 1 GB. The P812 can handle more drives, sure, but I doubt I will ever install an external DAS chassis
You can get more memory on your 400 series as well.
I saw some addon cards on ebay for that, it looked like the card gave you a more or less standard memory slot - is this what you are talking about?
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I always do it before the server ships, so not sure. But that controller goes up to 1GB of RAM.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I always do it before the server ships, so not sure. But that controller goes up to 1GB of RAM.
Yeah I can see all kinds of these servers with 1 GB cache cards installed, but so far haven't been able to find the cache card.
Not sure it would be worth $300 MSRP to double from 512 though assuming I had to go the retail route.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I always do it before the server ships, so not sure. But that controller goes up to 1GB of RAM.
Yeah I can see all kinds of these servers with 1 GB cache cards installed, but so far haven't been able to find the cache card.
Not sure it would be worth $300 MSRP to double from 512 though assuming I had to go the retail route.
not sure either, VERY dependent on workload. But the "other" card, the P8xx series that you were looking at, that upgraded cache size would be its sole benefit.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I always do it before the server ships, so not sure. But that controller goes up to 1GB of RAM.
Yeah I can see all kinds of these servers with 1 GB cache cards installed, but so far haven't been able to find the cache card.
Not sure it would be worth $300 MSRP to double from 512 though assuming I had to go the retail route.
not sure either, VERY dependent on workload. But the "other" card, the P8xx series that you were looking at, that upgraded cache size would be its sole benefit.
Right - I was assuming that moving to the P812 would only be giving me more cache.. might be worth it for around $100, but then again.. maybe now.
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Yeah, for $100, maybe. Sucks when 512MB of RAM is worth, like what, $10 tops? If that. $2 maybe?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, for $100, maybe. Sucks when 512MB of RAM is worth, like what, $10 tops? If that. $2 maybe?
Exactly. I wonder why most of these seem to be limited to 1 or 2 GB of cache - 8 GB stick today costs what? $50? less?
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Partially because it is NVRAM, so a lot more expensive to make than VolRAM. It's a different type of RAM because you can't have it losing state if the power fails.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Partially because it is NVRAM, so a lot more expensive to make than VolRAM. It's a different type of RAM because you can't have it losing state if the power fails.
Then what purpose does the battery serve?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Partially because it is NVRAM, so a lot more expensive to make than VolRAM. It's a different type of RAM because you can't have it losing state if the power fails.
Then what purpose does the battery serve?
There is no battery on modern RAID cards. I think our last battery on HP was around G5. Our G7 definitely is batteryless.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Partially because it is NVRAM, so a lot more expensive to make than VolRAM. It's a different type of RAM because you can't have it losing state if the power fails.
Then what purpose does the battery serve?
There is no battery on modern RAID cards. I think our last battery on HP was around G5. Our G7 definitely is batteryless.
Well, this is a DL380p Gen8 and it has a battery - I can take a picture after my phone issue is solved if you like.
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Maybe they still offer an entry level card. that would imply that you can't upgrade it because it isn't the same card as the 1GB one.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Maybe they still offer an entry level card. that would imply that you can't upgrade it because it isn't the same card as the 1GB one.
OH I am pretty sure I can't upgrade the current card - I'd have to simply replace it. It's a plug in card that goes into a slot that looks very similar to a RAM slot.
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This one looks like it might work, but it still has a battery connector even though it's flash based.
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@Dashrender said:
This one looks like it might work, but it still has a battery connector even though it's flash based.
"flash backed" means it'll store the contents of it's ram to flash when it goes to battery power, or am I missing something again?
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@travisdh1 said:
@Dashrender said:
This one looks like it might work, but it still has a battery connector even though it's flash based.
"flash backed" means it'll store the contents of it's ram to flash when it goes to battery power, or am I missing something again?
Well that would make sense, but then Scott's early comment about NVRAM vs VolRAM wouldn't be correct, I wouldn't think - would they have three different options?
