Smart Array P440 – create multiple RAID 0 at once using Smart Storage Administrator

This article shows how to create multiple RAID 0 drives for each disk at once. For example, a controller with 4 disks using this feature you can create 4 groups of devices with one logical drive in it with RAID 0 type.

This is feature is a kind of HBA mode, but on steroids, because it uses the cache of the controller and the hardware controller (Smart Array) optimizations.

All of your disks and the space in them will be available to the OS, but through the Virtual Drive logic of HPE Smart Array. If you check out the article and why you may need JBOD here – Smart Array P440 – enable or disable HBA mode using Smart Storage Administrator it is mainly because of some file systems such as ZFS or Btrfs (even LVM and device mapper devices) have many more features than a hardware controller. So with this feature, you can easily have your disk “exported” to the OS and use the raid or more complex feature of ZFS, Btrfs, LVM, device mapper or another setup, but using the controller optimizations and cache.
Be careful this setup could lead to much bigger risk of data loss on power outrages if write-back cache optimization is enabled. And the more complicated the file system (or device mapper) setup is the more problems it has on power outrages without battery unit back-up in the controller. Always use this feature with a healthy battery in the controller.

How to create multiple RAID 0 Virtual Devices on each disk attached to the controller at once:

STEP 1) Click on the controller “Create Arrays with RAID 0” on the left to create multiple arrays of type RAID 0 at once.

main menu
Create Arrays with RAID 0

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Smart Array P440 – enable or disable HBA mode using Smart Storage Administrator

As a continuation of our series about HPE Smart Array P440 controller here how you can enable HBA mode of your controller. There are various scenarios why you may want to enable HBA such as:

  • JBOD mode -to use the disks in a sophisticated file system like ZFS, brtfs and more (or LVM, device mapper logical devices). You may have more features in the created logical device (or file system) – caching or managing the disks and so on
  • not using the cache (RAM) of the controller, so it may lower the risk of data loss caused by power outages
  • more platform independent when using software RAID / device mapper devices. When you create virtual drives in hardware mode, you must use only this type of proprietary controller or some compatible of the same company. When using software solution like software RAID or LVM (and the controller is in JBOD) you can move the disks with no problem to other hardware without the hardware controller.
  • * Some old controller (not this one) might have problems with SSDs such as timings when the disks start; when failing a disk (the SSD would probably fail with read-only, which means it could not be removed from the array and the metadata header cannot be changed to remove the disk); no TRIM support, which is essential for the disk endurance and many more.

After the screenshots, you can see the part of the Linux dmesg command with the lines related to the HP HPSA Driver and how the system sees the disks.
The following screenshots start with a controller in hardware mode in (HPE terms – Smart Array Mode), then enable the HBA mode, the OS will see the disks as JBOD and then again enable the hardware mode (Smart Array Mode):

SCREENSHOT 1) Click on the controller “Smart Array P440” on the left and then “Enable HBA Mode” to enable JBOD mode.

main menu
Enable HBA Mode

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Smart Array P440 – create multiple Logical Drives with different RAID Levels in one Array using Smart Storage Administrator

This article is to show you what different type of RAID logical drives and what strip size could be created on one Array consisted of multiple physical devices like hard drives or SSDs.
The following logical drives could be created or modified on Smart Array P440 with Smart Storage Administrator:

  • Multiple different RAID types with different strip sizes!!!
  • All RAID types could be modified and you could change the strip size to any type offered by the controller
  • Bigger RAID type logical drives could be change to smaller RAID type logical drives. Such as logical drives of RAID 5 type could be converted to RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 6 with any strip size on-the-fly without losing your data. Read on to see all of the RAID type modifications you an make.

SCREENSHOT 1) Click on “Create Array” to create a new array.

main menu
Logical Drives

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Enable or Disable the processor x2APIC support in HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9

This article is to show how to enable or disable the x2APIC processor feature from your BIOS in HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9. Generally, in other servers, you should find it under the Processor features menu. Here we show you how to Disable it in HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9:

STEP 1) To enter the BIOS press F9 during the start-up of the HP server.

main menu
System Utilities

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Smart Array P440 – create RAID 1+0 (RAID 10) using Smart Storage Administrator

This article is to show how to create RAID 1+0 in Smart Array P440 hardware controller and what kind of migration is possible from RAID 1+0 on this controller.

Existing RAID 1+0 could be migrated to RAID 0 or RAID 5 or RAID 6 (so the RAID Level transformation is possible) with different Stip size (any of the supported in the controller) on-the-fly with no data loss!

No data loss is available to the tested server HP ProLiant DL160 GEN9, check the manual for your generation.
You may check our more detail article on how to start HPE Smart Storage Administrator on your server here: Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

There are the steps to create RAID 1+0 using Smart Storage Administrator:

STEP 1) Click on “Create Array” to create a new array.

main menu
Logical Devices

Keep on reading!

Smart Array P440 – create RAID 6 using Smart Storage Administrator

This article is to show how to create RAID 6 (ADG) in Smart Array P440 hardware controller and what kind of migration is possible from RAID 6 on this controller.

Existing RAID 6 could be migrated to RAID 0 or RAID 5 or RAID 1+0 (so the RAID Level transformation is possible) with different Stip size (any of the supported in the controller) on-the-fly with no data loss!

No data loss is available to the tested server HP ProLiant DL160 GEN9, check the manual for your generation.
You may check our more detail article on how to start HPE Smart Storage Administrator on your server here: Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

There are the steps to create RAID 6 (ADG) using Smart Storage Administrator:

STEP 1) Click on “Create Array” to create a new array.

main menu
Logical Devices

Keep on reading!

Smart Array P440 – create RAID 5 using Smart Storage Administrator

This article is to show how to create RAID 5 in Smart Array P440 hardware controller and what kind of migration is possible from RAID 5 on this controller.

Existing RAID 5 could be migrated to RAID 0 or RAID 5 (so the RAID Level transformation is possible) with different Stip size (any of the supported in the controller) on-the-fly with no data loss!

No data loss is available to the tested server HP ProLiant DL160 GEN9, check the manual for your generation.
You may check our more detail article on how to start HPE Smart Storage Administrator on your server here: Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

There are the steps to create RAID 5 using Smart Storage Administrator:

STEP 1) Click on “Create Array” to create a new array.

main menu
Logical Devices

Keep on reading!

Smart Array P440 – create RAID 0 using Smart Storage Administrator

This article is to show how to create RAID 0 in Smart Array P440 hardware controller and what kind of migration is possible from RAID 0 on this controller.

Existing RAID 0 could be migrated only to the same RAID 0 (so no possible RAID Level transformation) with different Stip size (any of the supported in the controller) on-the-fly with no data loss!

You may check our more detail article on how to start HPE Smart Storage Administrator on your server here: Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

There are the steps to create RAID 0 using Smart Storage Administrator:

STEP 1) Click on “Create Array” to create a new array.

main menu
Logical Devices

Keep on reading!

Review of Smart Array P440 on a server HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9 using iLO – create, modify, delete array and view controller settings

This article is to present how you can connect to the iLO remote keyboard, mouse and video (KVM) to create, migrate or view the arrays in hardware controller Smart Array P440. You are going to see multiple screenshots of the graphical user interface of Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Smart Storage Administrator (3.10.3.0)

This is not a command line manual of the command line tool to manage the Smart Array P440. This is the HP’s GUI utility, which you can enter by pressing F10 on server start. So to enter it you must restart your server and you must have physical access to the server or remote access over the Internet with your browser to use the HP’s KVM (keyboard, mouse, video) branded iLO – HP Integrated Lights-Out. With HP iLO you can manage your server as if you are physically in front of it. Check out more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Integrated_Lights-Out

Here are the steps you can do to manage your Smart Array P440 on a modern HP server – HP ProLiant DL160 Gen9. Our server is powered Off state. This is summery what you can see in the following screenshots: first, we open the web interface of the HP iLO by typing the IP of the iLO. Then we click on “Java Web Start” on the Overview page (it is accessible in the Remote Console menu, too). We are going to create an array and then go through most of the controller and application settings. Read ahead to see the whole process…

SCREENSHOT 1) The login page of the HPE iLO ProLiant – the HP’s KVM of your server.

Write your login credentials and click on “Log In”.

main menu
HPE iLO ProLiant web login page

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