Hi all. i hope you can advise.
I bought a DL380 G7 server with 16 drives (10 900gb + 6 146 gb)
The seller (bargain hardware) advised before purchase "No RAID, RAID & HBA-Mode controller options available. The 'HBA-Mode' controller options will come with single drive pass-thru enabled and may not have other RAID levels immediately available."
I took that to mean they don't have required card to configure drives at post, but O/S or smart start cd (8.5..) ACU could configure it. However, thats not the case.
.The attempted install of O/S does not see the drives, so can't continue, despite loading compatible drivers from usb.
.ACU sees the P410i, but with a big yellow exclamation/warning. again no drives.
So i am thinking i need a card or other hardware. Can you advise please ? Will i just need a SAS EXPANDER? i looked on amazon (uk) for "HP 468406-B21 SAS Expander Card for HP Smart Array".
As my server has 2 cages of 8, do i need to get 2 sas expanders?
Will i need anything else ,or, will this even fix the problem??
Please let me know if i am barking up the wrong tree. if you need anything else please let me know. currently the device and hardware is all good as far as the diagnostic utility reports, apart from ACU of course.
i am a newbie (and autistic) so please forgive me if i dont understand some concepts or abbreviations immediately.
Thank you all for any advice and links to components as well as any explanations.
*EDIT* ok. so i need a raid controller card? and cables. but will a single raid controller card alone serve two 8 x drive cages (SAS A and SAS B)? I guess an SAS expander is only any good if i have a raid controller first?
Also, the current riser card only has 4x PCIe. Should i get an additional riser with 8x PCIe for the raid controller/s?
Thank you again. Rob