HP Microserver Gen8 discussion

Forums › IT Pro and developers › HP Microserver Gen8 discussion

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

BDFL - Memuneh
80949 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41717

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#915963 16-Oct-2013 11:46

SATA AHCI mode, with software RAID (Windows Server mirroring).

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

Mark

1656 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 555

#916229 16-Oct-2013 18:40

Hammerer:

I've had FreeBSD/FreeNAS ZFS bitrot detection when "the storage is in a volume handled by a RAID controller" because I only used RAID 0 volumes of one disk. So I haven't found a RAID controller that prevented ZFS bit rot detection. And I don't think that you mean that you want to install an existing RAID set. Changing RAID controller would likely be the bigger problem.

I'm not sure I follow you ... from what I understand if you have ZFS running on top of a hardware RAID LUN, ZFS is probably not going to be able repair corruption due to the hardware RAID controller getting in the way.
I know Wikipedia is not infallible but it does sum it up nicely :

"If there is a hardware RAID card used, ZFS always detects all data corruption but can not always repair data corruption because the hardware RAID card will interfere. Therefore the recommendation is to not use a hardware RAID card, or to flash a hardware RAID card into JBOD/IT mode"

Ragnor

8287 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 591

Trusted

#917129 18-Oct-2013 17:23

Yeah using hardware raid is probably counter productive with zfs.

If you're using a raid card for more ports you should be able to put it in JBOD/SATA/IT mode where it just exposes the disks to the OS rather than the result/array.

Hammerer

2480 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 802

Lifetime subscriber

#917768 20-Oct-2013 15:26

Mark:
Hammerer:

I've had FreeBSD/FreeNAS ZFS bitrot detection when "the storage is in a volume handled by a RAID controller" because I only used RAID 0 volumes of one disk. So I haven't found a RAID controller that prevented ZFS bit rot detection. And I don't think that you mean that you want to install an existing RAID set. Changing RAID controller would likely be the bigger problem.

I'm not sure I follow you ... from what I understand if you have ZFS running on top of a hardware RAID LUN, ZFS is probably not going to be able repair corruption due to the hardware RAID controller getting in the way.
I know Wikipedia is not infallible but it does sum it up nicely :

"If there is a hardware RAID card used, ZFS always detects all data corruption but can not always repair data corruption because the hardware RAID card will interfere. Therefore the recommendation is to not use a hardware RAID card, or to flash a hardware RAID card into JBOD/IT mode"

I'll elaborate in more detail.

I always tried to avoid hardware RAID to remove any dependencies on specific hardware configuration. But if I am forced to use hardware RAID, which is a form of disk virtualization, then that does not preclude using ZFS and detecting bit rot. But for ZFS to get full self healing of bit rot it will require its own redundancy through multiple RAID LUNs. So if I couldn't get JBOD/SATA/IT modes then I would try to get one drive per LUN because it is far less efficient if I had to have multidisk LUNs for hardware RAID0 or RAID1. I never had to do this as the controllers allowed single drives in RAID0 and RAID1, which makes sense because RAID1 usually allows continued operation with only one disk. Others have done this as here http://forums.freenas.org/threads/zfs-hardware-raid-no-jbod.7271/

I looked at the current Wikipedia entry and, if I read it right, most of the statements need qualification:
"If the disks are connected to a RAID controller, it is most efficient to configure it in JBOD mode (i.e. turn off RAID functionality)." It is more efficient conceptually and logically. Using ZFS for redundancy, it is most efficient for ZFS to provide redundancy through software RAID. But efficiency can also be measured by throughput and disk performance can improve under ZFS if RAID is enabled because RAID caching comes into play.

"If there is a hardware RAID card used, ZFS always detects all data corruption but can not always repair data corruption because the hardware RAID card will interfere. Therefore the recommendation is to not use a hardware RAID card, or to flash a hardware RAID card into JBOD/IT mode." The assumption is that redundancy is provide by hardware RAID. As far as I know and have experienced, there is nothing to stop ZFS or any other file system writing data to the RAID LUN. But ZFS does not have access to the RAID metadata so ZFS will have to have redundant data, preferably on another volume to allow some repairs. This is what the next sentence points out. "For ZFS to be able to guarantee data integrity, it needs to either have access to a RAID set (so all data is copied to at least two disks), or if one single disk is used, ZFS needs to enable redundancy (copies) which duplicates the data on the same logical drive."

I noticed that specific Wikipedia entry has been changed. This is what FreeNAS says say about ZFS and hardware RAID: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Recommendations
NOTE: instead of mixing ZFS RAID with hardware RAID, it is recommended that you place your hardware RAID controller in JBOD mode and let ZFS handle the RAID. According to Wikipedia: "ZFS can not fully protect the user's data when using a hardware RAID controller, as it is not able to perform the automatic self-healing unless it controls the redundancy of the disks and data. ZFS prefers direct, exclusive access to the disks, with nothing in between that interferes. If the user insists on using hardware-level RAID, the controller should be configured as JBOD mode (i.e. turn off RAID-functionality) for ZFS to be able to guarantee data integrity. Note that hardware RAID configured as JBOD may still detach disks that do not respond in time; and as such may require TLER/CCTL/ERC-enabled disks to prevent drive dropouts. These limitations do not apply when using a non-RAID controller, which is the preferred method of supplying disks to ZFS."

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80949 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41717

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#919467 21-Oct-2013 23:01

Some more information about the giveaway...

We will run this giveaway across seven blogs, with seven prizes in total (one prize per blog). We will start the giveaways from the 27th October, in this order:

October 27th - November 3rd

November 3rd - November 17th

November 17th - December 1st

Make sure you visit those sites on these dates and follow the instructions - you have a chance to win in each one of these.

Also 1CloudRoad is collating all the posts about the HP Microserver here.

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

sonyxperiageek

2984 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 398

Trusted

#919513 22-Oct-2013 08:41

Will you be giving away a brand new one? :D

Sony

Lego

Shop now for Lego sets and other gifts (affiliate link).

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80949 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41717

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#919516 22-Oct-2013 08:50

They will all be brand new, shipped from HP.

Configuration details later.

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 206

Trusted

Snowflake

#924584 31-Oct-2013 09:22

I'm still having 'random' crashes on my box :(

All my drivers are up-to-date, and I have even swapped out the shipped RAM for a brand new 8GB DIMM.

I'm starting to think the cause is "separation anxiety" as it always seems to happen within 1/2 hour of me leaving for the day :)

Seriously though, i'm suspecting either some some power saving stuff might be conflicting with hyper-v, or some storage driver stuff.

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 206

Trusted

Snowflake

#924588 31-Oct-2013 09:26

aha, yet another search of the internet appears to have produced gold:

This thread suggests the problem is with the HP B120i RAID driver, with a suggested solution to disable raid and use SATA AHCI instead (apparently the updated drivers didn't fix for the user(s) here either):

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/53bb0ac6-39ad-435f-b6ce-e39b3eb6e4b6/server-2012-r2-keeps-crashing?forum=windowsserverpreview

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 206

Trusted

Snowflake

#938171 20-Nov-2013 21:03

Regs: so I was hoping Mauricio would test and tell me if Hyper-V installed and ran on the Microserver, but i gave up waiting and just went and bought one. A G2020T model with the switch (but the switch is on backorder).

I've used 4 x WD "red" 3TB drives in "Raid 0+1" mode, with 1 100GB logical drive for OS files, a 1TB logical drive (for regular files), and a 4TB logical drive (for hyper-v virtual machine/disk files).

I've installed Windows Server 2012R2 and enabled Hyper-V (It works!)
I've also configured Hyper-V Replica to replicate 1TB of virtual machines from a Windows 2012 Hyper-V cluster (It also works!)

I'm currently having the odd crash (*) - possibly down to the memory i'm using, or a NIC fault. Bugcheck 0x00000139. I'm going to see if i can progress this and find the cause.

(*) this may well be due to the fact i'm using Win Serv 2012R2 and the microserver isnt yet tested/certified for the new OS release.

So after engaging HP Technical Support and providing traces and bugchecks and allsorts, i go no closer to fixing the problem.

I added more memory, swapped memory.
I reinstalled the RAID and OS and got the same issues.

I then switched to SATA/AHCI mode and reinstalled windows, configuring 1x4TB drive as 2TB MBR disk, 3x4TB drives in a 3-disk storage spaces pool. I've had no stability issues since.

My conclusion: the RAID drivers are buggy, avoid using the built in raid controller for win 2012/r2. Use SATA/AHCI mode.

I also did a simple test of copying a file from the 3-disk storage space "V:" drive to the 1-disk SATA/MBR "C:" drive and was getting over 200MB/sec at times which i thought wasnt bad. I didnt stop all other i/o on the machine while performing the test, so that would have slowed it at times.

copying 36GB file

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

Ragnor

8287 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 591

Trusted

#940343 25-Nov-2013 13:43

Was looking to get one but seems to be completely out of stock....

https://price.geekzone.co.nz/Product.aspx?pid=888096329

Also PriceMe only lists one store, missing obvious ones like:

http://www.ascent.co.nz/search.aspx?T1=G2020T&D1=2101

http://pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=SVRHSV2434546&name=hp-Micro-Svr-Gen8-G2020T-Base-NHP-AP-Svr

Dyson

Shop now for Dyson appliances (affiliate link).

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
80949 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 41717

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#941584 27-Nov-2013 10:35

Hmmm. It seems I am going to have a second broadband install at home (thanks to Snap Internet).

I was wondering what kind of network changes would I need to have the Microserver LAN0 going to the switch in our LAN and LAN1 going through the new router? I imagine in this scenario we have to make all 192.168.2.x traffic going through LAN0 and everything else going through LAN1 - how do I configure this?

Or even better, both networks with Internet access but use LAN1 first if available?

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

Support Geekzone by subscribing (browse ads-free), or making a one-off or recurring donation through PressPatron.

OmniouS

436 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 48

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#941638 27-Nov-2013 11:38

freitasm: Hmmm. It seems I am going to have a second broadband install at home (thanks to Snap Internet).

I was wondering what kind of network changes would I need to have the Microserver LAN0 going to the switch in our LAN and LAN1 going through the new router? I imagine in this scenario we have to make all 192.168.2.x traffic going through LAN0 and everything else going through LAN1 - how do I configure this?

Or even better, both networks with Internet access but use LAN1 first if available?

Set a static IP on both Ethernet adapters (or just have LAN0 static + LAN1 Automatic with DHCP). Do not configure a default gateway for LAN0. This will ensure that all 192.168.2.0 traffic goes over LAN0 with everything else going over LAN1.

Ragnor

8287 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 591

Trusted

#941702 27-Nov-2013 13:22

freitasm: Hmmm. It seems I am going to have a second broadband install at home (thanks to Snap Internet).

This is better controlled at the router imo, I would look at dual/multi wan router.

One that allows you to configure policies for: what type of traffic goes over which connection, load balancing, failover etc.

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 206

Trusted

Snowflake

#941898 27-Nov-2013 20:33

you can ad routing & ras on windows server 2012 and configure it to do NAT - then you can use it as a default gateway and route internet traffic through it. make sure you leave the firewall enabled if you do this though!

you need an intelligent firewall/router if you want to balance outbound across two connections though - as ragnor suggests.

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6