RogueWolf33

Awesome. No problem. Sorry, I missed that initially reading. Good luck!

The firmware has to be above 6.x from what I have read:

Hi there. I was able to get the HP P240 switched over to HBA mode and it is allowing Passthrough of my drives. Might be worth a read:

Hey there, Is this an HP server? I just converted mine to HBA mode and the process is supposed to work for H Series cards as well. Might be worth a read:

Good Evening Unraiders, I am an owner of an HP ProLiant DL380 Gen 7 Original configuration: 2 x Intel Xeon CPU X5660 6 Core 32 GB ECC Ram P410i Smart Array RAID controller 1x 4 TB Mechanical Parity HDD 6 x 1 TB SSD (Various Makes and Models) - Yes I know it is not currently supported by Unraid. As of yet, I have had minimal problems with my setup 4x Onboard 1 GB NIC 1x Integrated ILO NIC (Doesn’t matter for this documentation) Upgraded components P410i has been disabled and upgraded to P420 Smart Array RAID controller Added a 4-port intel Gigabit NIC controller card because why not, I was in there, and I had it laying around. Can use it for VM's or something. Consider this: Out of the box, The HP Smart Array controllers offer no IT or HBA mode through their firmware. (At least in the 7th Gen) In order to see any attached disks. RAID 0 virtual disks need created out of each disk and those are mapped in turn to Unraid to create your array. Each time a new drive was added, or if ever needed, replaced, the system would need rebooted so that a new drive can be placed and built in the RAID controller as a RAID 0 virtual disk. I have seen documentation indicating that users were having trouble getting their devices in HBA mode So I thought I would share my experience in hopes it might help someone. My System is a seasoned Unraid setup and had a buildup of Data. I am writing this with that perspective. If you are building new, simply do not create any virtual disks and skip the backup portion of this documentation. ***I assume no responsibility for the steps outlined in this documentation. It worked for me and took a bit of research. Please be sure you do the same and are confident you have a solid understanding before proceeding if you have data you are concerned with losing. I assume no responsibility for damaged hardware or lost data if you choose to follow these steps.*** Prep Steps: 1. Download HP Service Pack for ProLiant. I used Production Version G7.0 for my setup. This worked just fine. (Google the MD5 for your Service Pack for ProLiant if you do not have a contract or warranty with HP. Mine was: 064177d26c939f8dc60c6aefa0799bcf I was able to find a download. You can also search the SHA256.) 2. Download HP USB Key Utility 3. For the P420 Smart Array, be sure your firmware is 6.6.8 or above. Mine was 8.5 and worked just fine. I have not tried this for the P410i. 4. Using an expendable thumb drive, Run the HP USB Key Utility and select the downloaded ISO for the HP Service Pack for ProLiant Steps Taken: 1. Screenshots of shares and dockers for posterity sake 2. Backup all data from shares to a drive on my PC 3. Install "CA Appdata Backup/Restore v2" plugin on my Unraid server 4. Run a backup of the AppData folder and copy the share created from this backup onto drive on my PC 5. Confirm all data has been backed up. There is no turning back from this step if you have a preconfigured Unraid server. 6. In the Unraid server under Tools>New Config Select all disks and clear configuration **THIS WILL ERASE ALL OF YOUR DATA** 7. Reboot the Unraid server and pull your USB drive out so not to boot to the OS again. 8. Insert the created HP Service Pack for ProLiant thumb drive 9. Hit F8 on bootup to enter the HP Smart Array Firmware for your controller. Please note the Slot Number for your Controller it will be needed. 10. Delete all Virtual Disks from the firmware. Exit RAID controller BIOS and continue bootup to HP Service Pack for ProLiant. 11. Select "Interactive Firmware Update Version XXX" 12. Accept the EULA and click "Next" 13. On your Keyboard press Ctrl - Alt - D - B - X (This will bring up a Linux Bash shell) 14. Type command: hpssacli controller slot=2 modify hbamode=on forced (Replace Slot number with the slot number noted in step 9) 15. Reboot and replace your Unraid USB removing your HP Service Pack for ProLiant USB 16. If you received no error entering the command, you configure no virtual drives, and Unraid sees disks listed with Manufacturer information, You know these steps worked. Configure your array in Unraid. 17. Replicate all shares. 18. Copy back data to the original file locations 19. Restore AppData folder. Currently as I write this documentation, I am in the data restoration phase. My disks were detected without issue, My Parity is rebuilding, and I am restoring all data. I am confident I should be able to get away with restoring all settings. I will update any successes or failures once the data is all restored. That's it! I hope this helps someone moving forward. Happy Raiding! Additional Resources: How to turn HP Smart array raid controller to HBA Mode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuaezJd4C3I Configure the controller for HBA mode (Pass-through) https://systemausfall.org/wikis/howto/Disable%20HP%20Proliant%20Hardware-RAID "delete any existing configured array in the Smart RAID controller setup obviously, you should rescue the data before, if you need it enter the setup via F8 during bootup as soon as you see the greeting message of the P420i controller upgrade the RAID controller firmware (3.x is not sufficient; 6.6.8 works; see the end of this page) Acquire the ssacli package for configuring the RAID controller manually: Option A: use the HP Service Pack download the HP Service Pack for your server astonishingly this requires a running support contract with HP alternatively search for the MD5 checksum given in the download descriptions of HP e.g. teimouri.net blogs about and shares the Service Packs from HP regularly mount the ISO and copy the appropriate file for your system: hp/swpackages/ssacli-*.rpm (either i386 or x86_64) Option B: download the packages from the HP repositories see the Debian Wiki or the direct link from HP boot the server with a minimal or a real system install the ssacli package from one of the sources above: using the Service Pack ISO package: rpm -i --nodeps ssacli-*.rpm otherwise: use your regular package manager enable the HBA mode (pass-through) for the controller: For Smart-array controller starting with P, e.g. P420i: ssacli controller slot=0 modify hbamode=on For HBAs starting with H, e.g. H240: ssacli controller slot=0 modify raidmode=off verify the result (if required): ssacli controller slot=0 show you may safely remove the ssacli package again The above configuration change is permanent, until you reconfigure the controller again (e.g. with hbamode=off)." Service Pack for ProLiant (SPP Gent 8.1) https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_ff582daf008c4f529c4d6c28f6#tab3 USB Key Utility for Windows: https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_360731071b404454b454390208 Backup and Restore Dockers: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/81233-unraid-671-easy-way-to-backup-and-restore-specific-dockers/

Right, So as I was looking for where to reboot my switch, I was hit with a power outage that rebooted all my network equipment for me. The solution it seems was that I required the LAG to be switched to the LACP standard. The key was the 802.4ad designation in the bond driver from within Unraid. Research revealed: IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic link aggregation (802.3ad, LACP) Creates aggregation groups that share the same speed and duplex settings. Utilizes all slave network interfaces in the active aggregator group according to the 802.3ad specification. This mode is similar to the XOR mode above and supports the same balancing policies. The link is set up dynamically between two LACP-supporting peers. Both the switch and Unraid must be configured with the 802.3ad standard in order for LAG to work. From within the netgear switch I describe, you must select the Lag which will allow you to change from Static to LACP. This will allow your Netgear switch to use your Unraid LAG. I am putting this solution and screenshot here for anyone else that may run into a similar issue.

I may have just answered my own question. It seems that the switch needed to be configured in with LACP rather than a static LAG. Currently everything seems to be running as expected. I am going to reboot my switch to be sure.

Good afternoon everyone, I have recently acquired a Negear GS748Tv4 switch which has Link Aggregation capability. I have frequently considered this in a constant pursuit to optimize my configuration and see how different technologies work. I have discovered with my Bond, I can switch it to option 4 (802.4ad) which seems to be meant to compliment the Link Aggregation technology in my Negear switch. However, when I have all 4 of my ports bonded on the Unraid server, and I turn on Link Aggregation in the switch on the ports the Unraid server connect to, I Lose connectivity. Once I disable LAG again, I restore connectivity. I am curious, Is this technology not meant to be configured both on the switch and in Unraid? Or should the technology be able to be enabled both on the switch and Unraid and I should look further into configuring LAG on the switch as I may not fully understand how to impliment the LAG and allow communication to the rest of the switch? Please let me know any experience anyone may have with this. Thanks

I can see this thread is quite old and I am wondering if there may be some updated information regarding how SSD's are handled in an array. Currently I attempt to run this command to determine the style of TRIM my devices are using and the data is limited. I can only assume this has to do with the built in HP controller I am using. I have attempted to switch the SMART controller type from "Automatic" to the HP Specific type of controller listed but this does not help. I fear that I am unable to determine this information due to the RAID controller blocking the query. Is there a vendor or an SSD controller type list that might be able to be referenced before purchasing SSD's for an array? This is currently the only information I get back from the hdparm command: /dev/sdb: SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ATA device, with non-removable media Standards: Likely used: 1 Configuration: Logical max current cylinders 0 0 heads 0 0 sectors/track 0 0 -- Logical/Physical Sector size: 512 bytes device size with M = 1024*1024: 0 MBytes device size with M = 1000*1000: 0 MBytes cache/buffer size = unknown Capabilities: IORDY not likely Cannot perform double-word IO R/W multiple sector transfer: not supported DMA: not supported PIO: pio0 Any information is appreciated. Thanks so much!

This mentions parity, I agree. However, if the Parity drive is still Mechanical and the array drives are SSD, I only see a write hit if I am not mistaken. I am currently attempting to confirm that my drives support DZAT to be sure I will not run into issues in the future. I appreciate you putting me on this track so I can ensure I do not run into any issues.

Well shoot. Now I am not certain which solution worked! I tried @Frank1940 's method and it didnt seem to work. But then I tried @Squid 's and that didnt work either. So I completely closed out of Chrome and terminal started working again! I should have tried closing out of chrome after setting site permissions as Frank suggested. Either way, Thank you to you both!

That was a great idea! I checked that but that did not seem to resolve my issue. I am now trying squid's suggestion. Thanks so much Frank!

My hero! Thanks man.

@Squid Hey brother, Me again. I am actually having the same issue in chrome (I know, imagine that) I have found several ways of accessing the flash drive, but I cannot discover the super secret batman way of deleting the files out of said directories. Does the flash drive have to be mounted in terminal to do so? Am I missing something obvious? (I am sure I am) I just never tried to modify the OS files on the flash drive before. They seem "read only" in both the unraid webgui and Windows File explorer.

Currently i've had no trouble that I can pinpoint to an actual configuration problem, But to clarify, nope, I have all SSD as the Array. A single 4 TB HDD Parity for now. The object is to update to full SSD eventually. The HDD/SSD mix was in the Array but I have recently upgraded all drives to SSD. Not a hundred percent clear on what the issue would be with that. (Besides performance limitations due to the parity drive but I plan on upgrading that as well) Where would the sync errors come from in an SSD prominent system? Is there a lack of TRIM in Unraid? I am not clear on what is being conveyed.

@johnnie.black hmm. it almost sounds like from a rebuild standpoint, for redundancy and efficiently, dual parity would be a little more robust in data restoration. Unraid doesn't only reference parity drives though right? I can clearly see the read operations happening in tandem with all drives. Or am I misinterpreting this information?

I'll admit. I kind of don't know what to do with this information.... lol I am kind of committed.

I have not realized that. I thought I might have picked up that they are not supported as parity drives. I was thinking I might have been lucky that I just kept my parity drive a mechanical. It seems that having a cache option where everyone is bound to use them might spur a development in that area. Not to mention they are HUGELY prominent in the general PC building community as price continues to drop. Either way, so far my Unraid (without my own intervention gumming up the works) has been operating great. But thank you for making me aware!

Well, If it were me, I would look at the settings in the web ui of the transcoder to start. There are some optimization settings there. You mention you are trying to do 5k, that's pretty intensive. I'd start my search here:

@Antdonn I was actually able to find a HP Proliant DL380 G7 with 2 x Intel Xeon X5660 2.8 GHZ and 32 Gigs of RAM on ebay for a great price. it was something like 150 bucks if I remember correctly. By the time the item arrived, it was apparent that the reason it was so cheap is that it had been dropped. I do not think it was in shipment either. I ended up getting refund of half of that making my current investment around 70 bucks. To sweeten the deal I asked for drive caddies to save further money. No matter, it booted and the components worked. This thing had a nice 8 bays I could use. (Due to chassis warping I only could effectively use 7 of them though) I Started with a 32 Gig small Samsung USB and a hodgepodge of sata drives simply using the built in raid controller. I was forced to configure raid 0's on the controller before the OS would see them. I eventually purchased a 4 TB HDD for parity. (My logic here was that anything large enough to house parity for the future was going to be WAY too expensive in SSD's) Finally, one by one I started switching over all HDD's to SSD's. First 500's, and now I have 6 x 1 TB in SSD. The only mechanical I have is my Parity still. The Server comes with 4 network ports in it so I bonded these and purchased a switch. I was not too picky in SSD's the reason for this was the slowest SSD's are still going to out perform a lot of mechanical drives on the market if not all of them. I look for longevity in them. Crucial's MX Series seem to have a great life span and they offer up a nice robust warranty to go with them for a decent price (A bit more than the sandisk line but I believe the warranty is longer if I am not mistaken) In a perfect world I would have gone all Crucial MX series 1 TB and then move up. However, I pieced this thing together, I think I have 2 x WD Blues, 2 x Inlands, and 2 x Sandisks. All 1 TB. I haven't seen any issues outside of when I would try to upgrade or move around drives. this was just recently with Debris from dust building up getting into the sata ports giving me a world of hurt. (And other issues that were my own making which we will just chalk up to life lessons) I would say in hind sight, some research to do on a system you plan to install SSD's in. 1. Backplane - Be sure the backplane is not older in the server you purchase or you can upgrade it to a standard that will handle the speeds your SSD's put out. 2. Raid controller - A lot of people seem to be using LSI controllers I believe. They are flashed to "I.T. Mode" this allows a fluent passthrough to the Unraid OS without having to mess around with configuring the virtual disks in a controller BIOS before being able to see the disks in Unraid. 3. Consider how many disks you want to use and purchase a chassis that will compliment all of them. Even if you only start with 2 or 3, you want room to grow. I am currently considering PCIe expansion for my system as a possible parity solution and then utilizing my 7th slot on top of that but that is on the horizon. I think that is it! If you have any additional questions hit me up!

Good Lort you guys! Talk about emasculating a guy! I currently only have 6 TB. I am happy to report it is all SSD (With the exception of Parity) As cost drops, I will be upgrading systematically. This is my first unraid server but seeing all of your builds has certainly sparked some ambitions in me!

Final Update: I powered down the server systematically removing my SSD's. No HDD's left in my system. (With the exception of my parity drive) I have completely battled the jungle of dust bunnies. They have been exterminated. May they rest in peace. I carefully reseated all SATA drives back in their original homes. Prior to doing this, Disk 3 while attempting to view "Disk Log Information" on the "Main" tab, displayed cycling errors. Now, All drives file systems and Disk Log Info display green. Data is available again and I can start to rebuild. Thank you so much @Squid for always keeping the light on and lending a helping hand to us up and coming. I am sure I will be talking to you again in like 6 months or so when I inadvertently jack something else up! Until then, Happy Raiding! -RW33

Update: Started in maintenance mode and checked all disk. Only disk 5 found with corruption. Repaired disk 5 with instructions using the -v switch. (or operator, I am not sure of the correct terminology) Ran a check after the repair using -n Everything is clean. Once I started the array again in normal mode, My shares seem to have data again. Probably not all of it due to disk 1 being formatted but it's a huge jump for linux newbie nerds across the world. Post repair diagnostics attached. tower-diagnostics-20190922-0256.zip

Updated Diagnostics post Disk 2 rebuild. Shares have returned to normal. No data in my storage share still. Going into maintenance to run filesystem checks tower-diagnostics-20190922-0227.zip

Right on Squid, Thanks bud. I appreciate so much the feed back and the assistance already given. I will keep an eye out for @johnnie.black to continue this convo. disk #1 went WAYYY higher which is why i assumed 70k was like on the lower end. Ultimately I like 0's too. I'll set those smart controllers to HP and run another diag when the rebuild completes. Then I will shut down, dust, Check for HDD's and bring it back up in maintenance and just run disk checks on all the drives systematically to ensure best chance of success. Unless I hear otherwise from Johnnie or something.