HP DL380 G7 HDD Compatibility

[Mr Technician]

I recently acquired an HP DL380 G7 for use as a NAS and need hard drives. I've learned the hard way that servers are incredibly delicate about hardware compatibility so I am nervous about purchasing hard drives that may or may not be compatible. Currently I'm looking at getting WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf drives. Can anyone confirm that these drives are compatible with this server? I'm also looking for a 2U hotswap bay for 3.5in drives to replace the default 2.5in bays.

[Electronics Wizardy]

If you want a lot of 3.5 drives, id just get an external sas drive enclosure, like a sa120 or simmilar and a external hba.

 

Any drive should work fine, its just some non hp drives make the fan spin fast. I currently have wd reds, hitachi deskstars, and wd green power and seagate barracuda in my dl180g6 and they all worked fine.

[leadeater]

Yep as commented above, if the server is in 2.5" config you're not going to be able to convert it to 3.5". Just buy an external disk shelf.

[Mr Technician]

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yep as commented above, if the server is in 2.5" config you're not going to be able to convert it to 3.5". Just buy an external disk shelf.

Would it be possible to entirely rebuild the front of the box? It has the aforementioned 2.5 inch bay (2 wide by 4 tall) and a nearly empty section next to it with a DVD reader.

[Electronics Wizardy]

16 minutes ago, ThatFlashCat said:

Would it be possible to entirely rebuild the front of the box? It has the aforementioned 2.5 inch bay (2 wide by 4 tall) and a nearly empty section next to it with a DVD reader.

yes, but its a lot of work and you probably gonna miss a part, and ebay hunting is always fun. It can almost be cheaper to get something like a dl180 g6 that has 12 or 14 3.5 bays.

[leadeater]

48 minutes ago, ThatFlashCat said:

Would it be possible to entirely rebuild the front of the box? It has the aforementioned 2.5 inch bay (2 wide by 4 tall) and a nearly empty section next to it with a DVD reader.

 

30 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

yes, but its a lot of work and you probably gonna miss a part, and ebay hunting is always fun. It can almost be cheaper to get something like a dl180 g6 that has 12 or 14 3.5 bays.

 

Depends, most of the time you can't as the chassis is actually different for the 2.5" model and 3.5" model. I've asked our HPE contact about it before, though I think on Gen 8, and they said no you can't.

 

My IBM x3500 M4 is the same, can't convert but the M5 you can.

[NelizMastr]

Another thing to note is that HP servers hate drives without HP firmware on them, so even if you put a ton of 4TB 2,5" drives in there and forewent the 3,5" enclosure it'd sound like a jet engine non-stop. Going external is the safest bet.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, NelizMastr said:

Another thing to note is that HP servers hate drives without HP firmware on them, so even if you put a ton of 4TB 2,5" drives in there and forewent the 3,5" enclosure it'd sound like a jet engine non-stop. Going external is the safest bet.

Non HP drives work as long as you get HDDs with thermal sensors in them, so basically the very same HP HDDs without their firmware on it i.e. Seagate Constellation NAS disks. Funnily enough you used to get the same problem on iMacs, in reverse though, where if you put an HDD in without thermal reporting the fans would never spin up even if the HDD is melting heh.

[NelizMastr]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Non HP drives work as long as you get HDDs with thermal sensors in them, so basically the very same HP HDDs without their firmware on it i.e. Seagate Constellation NAS disks. Funnily enough you used to get the same problem on iMacs, in reverse though, where if you put an HDD in without thermal reporting the fans would never spin up even if the HDD is melting heh.

From my knowledge, iMacs go permanently full speed on their fans when the sensor is absent. This wasn't the case on the old iMacs (the plastic white iPod shaped things) but on all Aluminium iMacs I'm pretty sure they go bananas haha  

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

From my knowledge, iMacs go permanently full speed on their fans when the sensor is absent. This wasn't the case on the old iMacs (the plastic white iPod shaped things) but on all Aluminium iMacs I'm pretty sure they go bananas haha  

It did it on the Alu 2010 era silver back ones, the 2008 era black backs and the newer silver backs didn't. Oh and under Windows btw. Had to open up 30 iMacs twice because of that issue the 2nd time to chuck a resistor over thermal probe input, they were getting so hot you couldn't touch them and fans wouldn't do a damn thing. Resistor hack worked wonders.

[Mr Technician]

About an external enclosure then, would it be possible to get one that connects via SAS with internal SATA connectors? @leadeater @NelizMastr

 

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, ThatFlashCat said:

About an external enclosure then, would it be possible to get one that connects via SAS with internal SATA connectors? @leadeater @NelizMastr

 

SATA disks will go in a SAS shelf, SAS is cross compatible with SATA but you just can't go the other way (SAS on SATA).

[NelizMastr]

4 minutes ago, ThatFlashCat said:

About an external enclosure then, would it be possible to get one that connects via SAS with internal SATA connectors? @leadeater @NelizMastr

 

Your best bet is a HBA with an external SAS connection. Servers don't come with internal SATA connectors aside from usually one or two for DVD drives and whatnot.

 

EDIT: yeah SAS is compatible with SATA drives, no problem.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, ThatFlashCat said:

About an external enclosure then, would it be possible to get one that connects via SAS with internal SATA connectors? @leadeater @NelizMastr

 

The sas ones have sas/sata ports so any data drive will work fine.

 

Look for something like this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkServer-SA120-DAS-Array-70F10000UX-3-Year-Warranty/332337644546?hash=item4d60de0402:g:-5AAAOSwT5tWGx5V

 

And a hba like this one https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS9207-8E-Host-Bus-Adapter-H3-25427-02H/152906725627?epid=1608086694&hash=item2399f378fb:g:tJMAAOSwhfdadNG3

 

and sas cables like this 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/External-2M-Mini-SAS-Cable-SFF-8088-to-SFF-8088-407344-003-408767-001-Warranty/382293563900?epid=1000236466&hash=item590278d9fc:g:GpEAAOSwgbVanpOL

[Mr Technician]

On 5/15/2018 at 9:39 AM, Electronics Wizardy said:

The sas ones have sas/sata ports so any data drive will work fine.

 

Look for something like this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkServer-SA120-DAS-Array-70F10000UX-3-Year-Warranty/332337644546?hash=item4d60de0402:g:-5AAAOSwT5tWGx5V

 

And a hba like this one https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS9207-8E-Host-Bus-Adapter-H3-25427-02H/152906725627?epid=1608086694&hash=item2399f378fb:g:tJMAAOSwhfdadNG3

 

and sas cables like this 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/External-2M-Mini-SAS-Cable-SFF-8088-to-SFF-8088-407344-003-408767-001-Warranty/382293563900?epid=1000236466&hash=item590278d9fc:g:GpEAAOSwgbVanpOL

Do you know of a cheaper solution? Would it make sense to rebuild in a different case?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, ThatFlashCat said:

Do you know of a cheaper solution? Would it make sense to rebuild in a different case?

How much cheaper do you want? how many drives?

 

This guy is older and more power hungry, but cheaper https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Powervault-MD1000-Storage-Controller-Array-15-Bay-SAS-SATA/232760829959?hash=item3631a06807:g:RasAAOSw1fJa8OHw

 

 

[Mr Technician]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much cheaper do you want? how many drives?

 

This guy is older and more power hungry, but cheaper https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Powervault-MD1000-Storage-Controller-Array-15-Bay-SAS-SATA/232760829959?hash=item3631a06807:g:RasAAOSw1fJa8OHw

 

 

I may have as few as 4 drives. This isn't a major NAS by any means. Furthermore the drives need to be accessible to the NAS software and not "hidden" behind a hardware raid controller.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, ThatFlashCat said:

I may have as few as 4 drives. This isn't a major NAS by any means. Furthermore the drives need to be accessible to the NAS software and not "hidden" behind a hardware raid controller.

there is no hardware raid here.

 

If you want really cheap, just run some sata/sas cables form the back of the servers and have the drives sitting on top, but if you want more, those sas expanders are nice.

[Mr Technician]

2 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

there is no hardware raid here.

 

If you want really cheap, just run some sata/sas cables form the back of the servers and have the drives sitting on top, but if you want more, those sas expanders are nice.

I was thinking about doing that but it seems like asking for trouble. Maybe I can custom build something to hold some hotswap bays (like this) or something...

[Electronics Wizardy]

58 minutes ago, ThatFlashCat said:

I was thinking about doing that but it seems like asking for trouble. Maybe I can custom build something to hold some hotswap bays (like this) or something...

Yea that will work if you just put it on top. but getting an external hba and a sas shelf isn't that much more.