HPE E208i-p Raid Card HI all, So it seems the only raid card supported by HP is the HPE E208i-p raid card. Whilst I’m loathed spent the £200 on the card, it is looking...

[kev2021]

Hi,

No need, the servers boots to the drive with the esxi boot OS on already, I’ve not had to touch it.

On the raid settings, it says to only set one of the logical drives to primary if not using UEFI, so I left it as default.

Still bugging me the physical drives don’t show on home screen, i guess on way to know if raid is working is to power it off, remove 1 drive, plug into a USB caddy and check the files from my PC?  Then put back in and then do the same for the other drive, that way i will know if mirrored as I’ve installed 2 new VMs today that didn’t exist before i put them into the new server so that’s only way i can tell.

Kev

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kev2021 wrote:

physical drives don’t show on home screen

Yes, that does sound most odd, i will have a look online also incase I find anything useful ?

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[kev2021]

sure, thanks.

Anything you find would be useful, might see if i can get some screenshots of it at some point when i’m done sorting the windows 2022 issue I posted about..

I’ve shut the box down now.. had enough for 1 day now :)

Kev

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[UK Sentinel]

I started to have a look and then wondered, When you say ‘physical drives don’t show on home screen‘ do you mean you cannot see them on the Windows 2022 server (disk management) ?

Hopefully the extra memory arrived  ?

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[kev2021]

Hi Sorry, think it’s getting confusing :)

The physical drives not showing is in the HPE Smart array controller screen on main page, when you click on controller and go configure, then they show up but on the main screen, only the 2 x SSDs.

I’ve now swapped the 850 SSD for another 860 SSD and when i turned it on this morning, no overheating issues and so my suprise by the time server booted up and I got into the smart array screen, it showed 96% complete for auto raid rebuild.  I then clciked refresh and it was done!  I know they are only 256Gb SSDs but wasn’t expecting them done in coupel of mins.

The memory is a new storey… So phoned parcelforce today again as no call back Mon.  Asked where parcel was as was meant to arrive monday but address issue some how, then was meant to come but hasn’t and no call back on MOnday, lady put me on hold, called Depo, seems they have a guy lookign into it since 5am this morning (its now aroudn 10:30/11am) but no update yet.. but he will contine to look and call me back.

So later that afternoon, I get a call, they ask me what it is i ordered I tell them its memory they are like ok yeah i know its a small box but we have lost the box so I need to contact company i bought from, tell them they have lost it, they will then need to put a claim into parcelforce and I will need to get them to send me another memory stick.

So go on there livechat, guy says he has raised a case and will get a update via email but.. no email so far so i’m goign to call them tomorrow and see whats up as I did ask when will they send me the memory but he said he needed a update first.  Seems a bit strange as surely them raising a claim for a parcel gone missing is nothing to do with me, they shoudl surely be putting another memory card in the post asap? Will try get them to sort quickly tomorrow as I want to get this server put in its perm location and be done :)

Kev

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[UK Sentinel]

kev2021 wrote:

I’ve now swapped the 850 SSD for another 860 SSD and when i turned it on this morning, no overheating issues

Great news

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kev2021 wrote:

The physical drives not showing is in the HPE Smart array controller screen on main page, when you click on controller and go configure, then they show up but on the main screen, only the 2 x SSDs.

A little out of my comfort zone unfortunately, I have read the latest firmware for the E208i-p Raid Card is causing issues so maybe worth trying a previous version (maybe)

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[kev2021]

Hi,

What version is latest as I updated from 2021-10 ProLiant service pack, which going by the name would be October last year.  I believe there maybe a newer version of firmware but I not figured out how to manually update the firmware, i used the service pack, put it on USB stick, booted machine up to the usb stick and it automatically loaded up, updated, i didn’t click anything at all.

So i plan on using this method going for if required again.

Also powered machine on today, no overheat issue on boot up and I have fans on increase cooling at min 20% so i might try altering the temp and see if its still ok as maybe it was the 850 drive after all, even though drive utility said it was all fine, maybe it didn’t like being in the raid.

Re memory – for fiasco, phoned to day, it seems they are investigating and will email me, no email by this afternoon so went on there chat and they are still looking at it and waiting for investigation outcome before proceeding, they can only refund or resend me the part i ordered when investigation is complete, they ae unsure how long Parcelforce take to come back but other couriers are 5-7 days so doesn’t look like I will be getting my memory until end of next week or the following week :(

I did suggest could they ship replacement to me and IF Parcelforce find the memory, have them ship it back to them but they cannot do that :(

Kev

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HPE SmartRAID Gen10 E208i-p Controller

• Firmware:   HPD1 2021-12-23 which has been removed (?) ‘so interesting I think ?
• Driver:     2021.09.01 – 2021-11-05
• Software:    5.20.8.0 2021-11-05

Have a look at below link:

https://support.hpe.com/connect/s/product?language=en_US&tab=driversAndSoftware&kmpmoid=1014111697&viewCritical=false&driversAndSoftwareFilter=8000113

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[kev2021]

Hi all

So update here….

Yesterday I contacted the company again re the memory as no email, call, nothing.  It turns out they have now put in a claim for the missing memory to parcelforce so do i want a replacement or refund, I tell them replacement, they sent it out yesterday advising woudl prob come Wednesday but late yesterday night i got a email from parcel force saying its coming Tuesday (today) so was a bit dubious as seemed a bit too quick but it has arrived today!  Fitted into the server and now it is showing 32GB of ram!

Also, i’ve now set the fan speed back to what is was by default but set the minimum speed to 10% and no overheating issues on boot up so all looks good on that front, been few days of it being on and off etc so looks lke it was the 850SSD, either didn’t like the drive (despite Samsung Magician saying its all ok) or it didn’t like the 2 different drive types in the raid but either way happy no errors and also no 20second delay on boot up each time :)

So server will now be moved to its perm home finally :)  So just the VMs to sort out now, decided I’m going to move some off to a different drive elsewhere for now to free up some space as weirdly esxi 7.0 must do something different with formatting etc as it reckons only around 350GB free space now and I’ve only created 2 additional VMs (thin provisioned) and i only have 1TB drives before so some how I’ve either forgotten I’ve done something or its using up more disk space than esxi 6.0 some how.

Also as for extending the C drive in Virtual machine, I cannot find a free utility that will do this on windows 2002 server (Windows 2002 server adds a health/recovery partition after C drive), anyone know of one?  I tried some but that all look like they will work, when I choose to actually do it they say you need to buy…

Thanks

Kev

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[UK Sentinel]

I forget, what is the current size of you C:/ drive ? and is disk initialized by MBR or GPT system

 

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Did you try  GParted.org as this is a free partition tool for x86-64 system and references to windows server and supports  RAID and NTFS partitions. is made ?

gparted.org

Ref:

https://www.diskpart.com/res/gparted-repartition-windows-server.html

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[kev2021]

Hi,

My C drive in the VM is 40GB, I wanted to add another 15Gb to this.  From what I can tell, gparted needs to boot when you first turn the machine on, would this work via a VM?

the host O/S on the server is esxi 7.

Thanks

Kev

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[UK Sentinel]

I believe so …. but a bit long winded and unsure if this will be applicable for your given config ?

---

Create a new VM

• Create a new VM
• In VirtualBox create a new VM (Ctrl+N)
• Name: “GParted”
• Type: Linux
• Version: “Linux 2.6 / 3.x (64 bit)” or similar
• Choose “Do not add a Hard Drive” when prompted. Ignore the warnings

Add GParted ISO to the new VM (GParted)

• Right-click on your newly created VM and select “Settings”
• Choose “Storage”
• Select “Controller: IDE” and add a new CD/DVD device
• When asked if you would like to choose a virtual CD/DVD to add select “Choose disk”
• Browse for the previously downloaded GParted _ISO gparted-live-0.30.0-1-i686.iso and choose it
• If there is an “Empty” disk under “Controller: IDE”, you may remove it

Add the *.vmi to resize to the GParted VM

• Select “Controller: SATA” and choose “Add Hard Disk”
• Select “Choose existing disk”
• Browse for the disk to resize (LinX Software Suite DevEnv v3.0.1-disk1.vdi)

https://support.crosscontrol.com/kb/virtual-machine-virtual-box

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[kev2021]

Thanks, not sure if this will work but will take a look.

Kev

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