HP H240 Smart HBA Support (in HBA Mode)


ezhik

Recommended Posts

On 4/10/2020 at 1:15 PM, Keko said:

Hey folks,
Sorry to revive this thread, but after a few hours I've finaly succeed to mount my HDDs on two HP H240 HBA (unRAID 6.8.3).

 

Don't know if anyone already gave this tips but I leave this post here so that I can help someone who, like me, following the purchase of an H240 card will not be able to operate it directly because you have to reset and turn on the HBA mode. I came across this topic while looking for a solution to my problem and it gave me a fairly fruitful starting point in my research.

 

So, you, little unRAIDnewbie who's looking to save some bucks and have plenty of SATA ports on your rig, be advised:
There's really no big deal when you've got the right tool.

 

I've seen a few people talking about the HP-SSA but this is not the one.

You've must try the Service Pack for Proliant (SPP).


For those who struggling to find the software to be used, I strongly recommend you googling this version ..
"SPP2017101" (you'll know where to find it;)


- Mount it with the HP USB creator included in ISO

- Boot on the USB key

- Wait a bit ..
- Agree to the terms and select next,
- At this point, you can choose to update the firmwire on the left, and manage your array on the right.
- When you go the management tab, you'll see your card on the left side, click on it (don't mind the warning, it's only if an array is mounted).

- Normaly there's only two option: Power Management / Switch to HBA mode
- Select the obvious one, I've not tried the firmware update, feel free to do it.
- Try to reboot the soft but if you got stuck after quite a time, hard reset it ..


Et voilà !


Hope this can help a few 😃

Keko

 

so after a couple boots and re-attempts it finally booted and ran this file..   it was saying it was corrupted and would not load..  now that it loaded its showing just an absolute bunch of jibberish on the screen but still seems to be running through the install..  

I have this card in a G8 DL380 machine and that may be the issue.. but its listed as compatible in some places?? 

I am hoping this file works..  as i have updated everything..     i have a 24 core 48 thread paperweight with 256 gigs of ram right now..  and it sucks..   

Link to comment
1 minute ago, sota said:

I used 864794_001_spp-2016.04.0-SPP2016040.2016_0317.20.iso to switch to HBA mode.

 

if you're still having problems getting it done, try and find that.

 

also, see my sig.

trying this now.. as the above didnt work..   the newest version does not work..   now im going to try this one once i can find it..

do you install it with the USB tool?

Link to comment
20 minutes ago, Newtious said:

trying this now.. as the above didnt work..   the newest version does not work..   now im going to try this one once i can find it..

do you install it with the USB tool?

I dont think I will ever buy an HP server again..    im not paying a fee to get out dated drivers...  and google has not left me with anything from searches..       I am honestly wondering if i will get my moneys worth of enjoyment out of smashing this thing with a hammer.....

 

Link to comment

I made a bootable USB stick out of the ISO.  there's even an HP branded tool/software to it.  I'll grant you it was a bit disappointing when HP stuffed everything behind a paywall basically, but you can find stuff if you look for it.
I didn't have as much apparent difficulty you seem to be having, getting the H240 to work properly.

 

Looking at my archives, it's possible I used P19473_001_spp-2019.09.0-SPP2019090.2019-0905.39.iso instead, but I thought I only used that to get the updated BIOS/Firmware for the server, iLO, and potentially the controller.  It's been a while since i did this, and the memory wasn't retained.

Edited by sota
added link to tool
Link to comment

I honestly am questioning if my server has some hardware issues going on..   i have stripped everything out of it.. (almost everything the onboard fiber channel card is still in it)  and it seems every 3 or 4 boots it lets me in to configure any cards..   I have gotten the thing to boot into the intelligent provisioning but half the time it locks up..  when I get into it I can see both controller cards (or one or the other depending on what i have in or disabled) and it will show both cards is HBA mode..  it shows the drives..  i can pop them in and out and it will show accordingly..   i have tried getting unraid to see the drives on both cards..  i have swapped cables.. I have swapped damn near everything on this machine..

now..  now it shows the onboard 420 card (its all i have plugged in) and i load the inteli prov and the damn card does not show up..    im going to disable it again and lob the 240 in..     my 240 card seems to want to spit an error code about some add on battery pack?   i can find the error again shortly and post it..   but at this point i dont wana spend more money and buy another controller card if my servers mobo is toast or something..  and I live in a city with nothing but idiots at the computer shops..  nobody knows servers and i cant even find a company that works on them for large businesses..   its hell..   id pay to get this thing going..  and there is nobody to pay!      

 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, sota said:

I made a bootable USB stick out of the ISO.  there's even an HP branded tool/software to it.  I'll grant you it was a bit disappointing when HP stuffed everything behind a paywall basically, but you can find stuff if you look for it.
I didn't have as much apparent difficulty you seem to be having, getting the H240 to work properly.

 

Looking at my archives, it's possible I used P19473_001_spp-2019.09.0-SPP2019090.2019-0905.39.iso instead, but I thought I only used that to get the updated BIOS/Firmware for the server, iLO, and potentially the controller.  It's been a while since i did this, and the memory wasn't retained.

can you look up what versions of firmware your running on every aspect of your machine?      I am not joking when I say every aspect of my server is inconsistent and it seems like every time I reboot things change..     I am pulling my hair out and am considering just stuffing winblows on this thing till covid blows over and i can send my box off to get someone to fix it or tell me its now a paper weight

Link to comment

you're not in NJ are you? :D

 

and if you're thinking something's amiss with the hardware, strip it all the way down to single processor, single memory chip, no  expansion boards, single power supply, no drives plugged in.

 

I had mine delivered with a pair of memory sticks that turned out to be faulty, but because it's ECC memory the system was quietly dealing with the problem.  Took a bit to figure it out.

 

Product ID 669257-B21
System ROM P73 05/24/2019
System ROM Date 05/24/2019
Backup System ROM P73 08/02/2014
iLO Firmware Version 2.70 May 07 2019
Smart HBA H240 Firmware Version 7.00

Edited by sota
Link to comment
  • 3 months later...
On 3/14/2019 at 6:02 PM, mAYH3M said:

Mar 15 10:46:48 Media-NAS kernel: hpsa 0000:2f:00.0: scsi 12:0:1:0: masked Direct-Access     ATA      ST3500320AS      PHYS DRV SSDSmartPathCap- En- Exp=0

regarding this...

the disk most likely was part of a hardware RAID array, in my case from an HP P-series controller.  If it hasn't been deleted from an array (even of 1 disk) it'll be "masked" by an H-series controller.  I'm researching now a way of fixing that, without having to mount the disk to a P-series controller and delete the array stored on the disk.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
  • 1 year later...

Hi all,

 

I am reviving this thread because since a little while ago I got a 2nd hand H240 because I saw it was a plain HBA and should work out of the box. Today upon testing, I realized that there might be a problem with the HDD temperatures. They are not show up, as well as the SMART attributes. I saw that @ezhik made a post a couple of years back as well.

 

Playing around I just stumbled upon the following parameters that one can setup optionally in Unraid and now the temperatures are shown up properly in the GUI. Is this all that one has to do? What happens if a disk changes a letter after a reboot (or after being failed from the array)?

 

cciss.png

 

However I realized that SMART attributes do not appear. Is there a solution about that by any chance?

 

smart_attributes.png

Edited by Jackal
Link to comment

Well, the following settings worked for me. I also discovered, this is what it is used by the 'preclear' plugin in order to extract attributes and information.

 

I hope I am not doing something wrong here ;-)

 

image.thumb.png.1dd5033e54126fa3222345ac5ea73403.png

 

New Information Added, that cleared things up for me more. This is taken from the smartctl (8) - Linux Man Pages

 

Quote

sat[,auto][,N] - the device type is SCSI to ATA Translation (SAT). This is for ATA disks that have a SCSI to ATA Translation (SAT) Layer (SATL) between the disk and the operating system. SAT defines two ATA PASS THROUGH SCSI commands, one 12 bytes long and the other 16 bytes long. The default is the 16 byte variant which can be overridden with either '-d sat,12' or '-d sat,16'.

If '-d sat,auto' is specified, device type SAT (for ATA/SATA disks) is only used if the SCSI INQUIRY data reports a SATL (VENDOR: "ATA "). Otherwise device type SCSI (for SCSI/SAS disks) is used.

 

Edited by Jackal
Added Information from smartctl Man Pages
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.