Some Notes on the Machines

Here is a useful guide to HPE RAID model numbers:

medium.com/@ITsolutions/selecting-the-best-hpe-smart-array-controller-for-your-server-da10b7424c8c

The current download site for MegaRAID (formerly LSI, Avago, et al.) drivers and Storage Manager now appears to be here:

https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/raid-controllers/megaraid-sas-9361-8

A great little tool found by the extraordinary Zach Hogan:

http://www.icc-usa.com/raid-calculator.html

It is here right now:

https://h20566.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_9eae20fde3d34070bccecad8c0

LSIget contains an excellent RAID diagnostic system for LSI RAID, which includes 3ware. It produces a .7z archive with many different files inside. Mostly this is intended for LSI support tech usage, but it can help a lot when drive serial numbers don’t show up in the RAID console. To get this information from the archive, locate this file within and open it:

AdpAlllog_AO.txt

From the indefatigable Mike Martinez.

Here is a link to download the current LSI and 3ware RAID diagnostics:

http://mycusthelp.info/LSI/_cs/AnswerDetail.aspx?inc=8264

Run it with argument “-B” for extreme quietude, “batch mode,” no warnings or input needed at all.

1. On the server, browse to: http://www.hp.com/bizsupport
2. Using your browser’s search, search for the word Proliant. That will give you the link to the page you need:
   http://www8.hp.com/us/en/support.html
3. Search for the server model you are working on, and open the relevant page.
4. If the server is SBS, at least at this writing, you will not find the files you need under the SBS page. If your SBS version is 2011, you will find the files you need under Server 2008 R2. With this in mind, open the relevant page for your server.
5. Under Driver – System Management, download and install the Management Controller Driver. Best to save it to hard drive and run the installer as administrator.
6. Under Software – System Management, download and install the System Management Homepage. Must save it to hard drive and run the installer as administrator, because it has to start a service.
7. Under Software – System Management, download the Insight Management Agents, and also the Insight Management WBEM Providers. You only need one of these, but it has been seen that sometimes only one of the two will successfully install. Must save to hard drive and run the installer as administrator, because one or more services will have to be started.
8. Attempt install of one of the items downloaded in #7. There may be a small tendency for the WBEM item to work more often, but this is not clear. If the install halts but does not fail, restart the HP System Management Homepage service and (if present) the HP WMI Storage Providers service, and the install may complete cleanly.
9. Open the HP System Management Homepage. Your hardware readouts should be complete.

Try this:

http://www.win-raid.com/t15f37-NVIDIA-Optimized-nForce-Driverpacks-for-Vista-Win.html

If you work with RAID a lot, you have seen this. You need to know which drives are involved with a particular RAID volume, even though the RAID-dedicated indicators (software/hardware mix usually) aren’t set up, working, existing, and/or reliably visible. Well, this way works in Windows if you have drive lights on every drive. This is a CMD script:

REM This script 'runs' a drive or RAID volume,
REM write then read then write then read...,
REM two megabytes at a time, 2000 times.

REM You'll also need a 'dd.exe' placed in
REM %SYSTEMDRIVE%\WINDOWS.  I use
REM the excellent one available here:  
REM http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

REM Drop this script as a .CMD file on the root 
REM of a drive/volume for which you want to verify 
REM drives, then run it.  The drive lights will all
REM flicker fairly regularly, unless you have some 
REM super-duper buffering/caching in place.

SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS

FOR /L %%I IN (1,1,2000) DO (
	dd if=/dev/random of=test.dd bs=2048000 count=1
	dd if=test.dd of=NUL
)

del test.dd

The idea is, while it’s running, whatever drives are being read/written, will have lights on. You’ll want to Ctrl-Break after you learn what you need, although this ‘dd’ appears to be very gentle with the machines. Please note that it does need a ‘dd.exe’; I have tested it only with the particular ‘dd.exe’ from this excellent source, I place it in %SYSTEMDRIVE%\WINDOWS.

If you cannot mount a drive in Linux, it is very possibly because of a stale or partially-configured RAID set. If the drive in question is /dev/sde, use mdadm -x from root to delete /dev/sde from any RAID set currently extant (in Fedora, it’s Disk Utility, under Applications, System Tools).