Dell PERC H730P RAID Controller

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The PERC H730P RAID Controller from Dell offers reliability and performance in addition to providing management with the tolerant disk subsystem failures. This RAID controller offers expandable 2GB storage capacity to improve the performance of your server systems. The double module channel provides high-speed connectivity. This product has been tested and validated on Dell systems to ensure compatibility with your computer. It is supported by Dell Technical Support when used with a Dell system.

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This product is compatible with the following systems:

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Управление массивами Dell PERC H730 Mini

Недавно появилась возможность заняться настройкой RAID-массива на сервере Dell PowerEdge R730. Массивы необходимо сконфигурировать на контроллере Dell PERC H730 Mini . Устройство 1 представляет из себя решение enterprise-уровня в основе которого лежит небезызвестный контроллер LSI SAS 3108 2 четвертого поколения. Чип имеет следующие ключевые характеристики:

• Поддержка SAS 3.0 (а значит можно использовать диски 12гбит/с SAS);
• 8 внутренних портов (два Mini-SAS SFF8643 по 4 диска на каждый) с возможностью подключения до 255 дисков SAS/SATA через экспандер;
• Производительность до 600К IOPS вполне позволяет использовать SSD-диски, контроллер при этом узким местом не будет.

В статье я займусь созданием массивов различными путями — как через iDRAC, так и из низкоуровневых утилит управления.

Если вам интересны raid-технологии и задачи администрирования raid-контроллеров, рекомендую обратиться к рубрике RAID на моем блоге.

Меняем BIOS на UEFI

Перед настройкой RAID-массивов необходимо зайти в BIOS материнской платы и выставить режим загрузки UEFI. Этот режим добавит возможность загрузки с массивов с GPT-разметкой, которая позволяет адресовать более 2ТБ свободного пространства на массиве. Поскольку у меня 8 дисков по 4ТБ, а планирую я объединить их в RAID 10, то UEFI мне просто необходим, иначе придется искать обходные варианты.
Итак, первым делом заходим в BIOS (при загрузке нажимаем F2), идем в System Bios\Boot Settings и выставляем нужный режим:

Нажимаем Back и на главной странице Finish, подтверждаем выплывшее предупреждение и получаем сообщение об успешном применении настроек:

Стоит отметить, что после переключения на UEFI у вас вероятнее всего не получится попасть в классический интерфейс утилиты Perc H730 Mini Bios Configuration Utility:

Это связано с тем, что если ПО поддерживает UEFI API (UEFI-aware) 3 , то есть возможность использовать полноценный интерфейс (более известен как Human Interface Infrastructure — HII) даже с поддержкой мышки. Напомню, что попадали в низкоуровневую утилиту вы через CTRL+R при старте сервера на этапе загрузки драйверов RAID-контроллера:

Как только нужный режим выбран, можно переходить к настройке массивов.

Создание RAID через Lifecycle Controller

Во время загрузки сервера заходим в утилиту управления оборудованием Lifecycle Controller (F10). Создать нужный массив я сначала попробую именно из неё, а уже потом через утилиту управления контроллером и iDRAC8. Функционал Lifecycle Controller несколько ограничен, в ней можно только создавать массивы и просматривать их свойства, удалить не получится.

На главной странице выбираем Configure RAID:

Предлагают выбрать единственный контроллер на сервере:

А далее уровень RAID, который нам нужен (в моем случае RAID10, как я и упоминал выше):

Следующие этап — выбор дисков, которые будут находиться в массиве. У большинства настроек доступен лишь один вариант, поскольку это на самом деле даже не настройки, а характеристики дисков. Для RAID10 нужно минимум 4 диска, а у меня будут задействованы все 8:

Дальше определяем настройки будущего массива:

Лично мое мнение — лучше оставьте основные настройки со значениями по умолчанию, если вы явно не уверены, что вам нужны только строго определенные значения. Контроллеру виднее какие настройки для него более оптимальны и он вам их уже предложил. Единственное, что я ввел — это имя массива (кстати, пробелы в нем не поддерживаются). Дальше проверяем сводку:

Если все верно, нажимаем Finish. Вылезет предупреждение, подтверждаем его и идем дальше:

Дожидаемся окончания процесса и получаем сообщение об успешном завершении операции:

На этом процесс создания RAID-массива (виртуального диска, как он называется в Dell) завершен. С помощью Lifecycle Controller вы можете выполнять множество других задач администрирования, в том числе обновления микропрограммного обеспечения, установку хостовой ОС и др.

Ниже я попробую проделать точно такие же шаги по настройке RAID, но только с помощью других инструментов.

Управление массивами Dell PERC H730 Mini из BIOS

Поскольку у нас включен UEFI, управлять RAID-массивами можно прямо из BIOS. Для этого нажимаем F2 на этапе загрузки сервера, попадаем в меню:

Идем в Device Settings и выбираем RAID-контроллер:

Далее в Configuration Management:

Нам нужно создать массив RAID10, выбираем Create Virtual Disk:

Не забываем зайти в Select Physical Disks и выбрать нужные диски:

Когда диски физические выбраны, объем виртуального диска выставится автоматически, вам нужно лишь задать имя массива. Как только эти задачи выполнены, можно нажать на создание виртуального диска:

После этого можно проверить наш RAID-массив, зайдя в Virtual Disks Management (см на скриншотах выше):

Массив создан, идем фоновая инициализация.

Управление массивами через iDRAC8

Логинимся на веб-интерфейс и идем в Storage\Virtual Disks\Create:

Задаем все характеристики массива — имя (1), тип (2), отмечаем какие диски будут участвовать в массиве (Internal Disks внизу на скриншоте), объем массива (3) при этом выставится автоматически.

Также вы можете посмотреть подсказки сразу под разделом настроек (на скриншоте выделено квадратной рамкой). Как только все настройки определены, можно нажимать на создание массива.

Dell PERC H730P RAID Controller

• 

With Dell Rewards, purchases qualify for free expedited delivery.*

Learn more about rewards

The PERC H730P RAID Controller from Dell offers reliability and performance in addition to providing management with the tolerant disk subsystem failures. This RAID controller offers expandable 2GB storage capacity to improve the performance of your server systems. The double module channel provides high-speed connectivity. This product has been tested and validated on Dell systems to ensure compatibility with your computer. It is supported by Dell Technical Support when used with a Dell system.

Tech Specs

Quick Specs

General

Storage Controller

Compatibility Information

General

Storage Controller

Compatibility Information

Compatibility

This product is compatible with the following systems:

Ratings & Reviews

Drivers, Manuals & Support

Dell Support

From drivers and manuals to diagnostic tools and replacement parts, Dell Product Support has you covered!

Add the products you would like to compare, and quickly determine which is best for your needs.

Low monthly payments and exclusive offers. Get Pre-qualified today.^

Enjoy free shipping, easy returns* and price match guarantee.

Join for free and get up to 6% back in rewards*^ and free expedited delivery.*

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners
For warranty information, see website below and select Location : www.dell.com/servicecontracts

Celeron, Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Atom, Intel Core, Intel Inside, the Intel Inside logo, Intel vPro, Intel Evo, Intel Optane, Intel Xeon Phi, Iris, Itanium, MAX, Pentium, and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.

Dell PERC H730 in older Poweredge Servers?

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Have a small test lab at home with one system being a PE T610. Haven’t done much with lab for while but needing to making some changes. Specifically with disks system. Setup initial lab before Dell unlocked 3rd party drives. thus used another whitebox Starwind SAN back in the day.

Now considering local storage options and/or 2 node vmware vSAN.

Question is: Has anyone played with using newer Dell PERC H730 or H710 in older T610 (11th gen servers) Either the integrated or card?

I’m aware I’d need to custom SFF cable for T610 backplane if it can work. Also know Dell’s official statement would be no. And here’s a new server quote. But this is simple home lab.

If anyone has tried this could you please share your experience.

Hmm. Thanks for feedback guys. I thought 11th gen only did the H700 / PERC6. And that the 12th gen (T620, R720) used the H710 or H710P.

^This is correct.

The main advantage of the H730 over the H700/H710 cards is that it uses the PCIe 3.0 bus, which has twice the bandwidth of the v2.0 PCIe found on the earlier cards. Because the T610 is PCIe 2.0 you will not be able to utilize this extra speed. Model for model, P vs. non-P, the H730 does also have twice the onboard cache compared to the H710 series, but you are mentioning an H730 (1GB NVR), and could achieve the same by going with a H710P, or an H700 with the 1GB NVR option.

I have a T610 with a 1GB NVR H700, 8 x 4TB 7.2K SAS in a RAID 10, and it works quite well. Physically, AFAIK, they are the same, but this would be better answered with a phone call to Dell. The other issue you may run into is firmware updates.

Edit: There are many people that have run H710’s in 11th Gen PE’s successfully.

18 Replies

The card doesn’t know what server it is in so this should work just fine. IT would work in a random non-dell desktop, too. But I’ve never tested your configuration.

As for the H710, that is the «official» Raid card for Gen 11 servers. Have it installed in several R710 which has the same motherboard as the 610s.

Hmm. Thanks for feedback guys. I thought 11th gen only did the H700 / PERC6. And that the 12th gen (T620, R720) used the H710 or H710P.

^This is correct.

The main advantage of the H730 over the H700/H710 cards is that it uses the PCIe 3.0 bus, which has twice the bandwidth of the v2.0 PCIe found on the earlier cards. Because the T610 is PCIe 2.0 you will not be able to utilize this extra speed. Model for model, P vs. non-P, the H730 does also have twice the onboard cache compared to the H710 series, but you are mentioning an H730 (1GB NVR), and could achieve the same by going with a H710P, or an H700 with the 1GB NVR option.

I have a T610 with a 1GB NVR H700, 8 x 4TB 7.2K SAS in a RAID 10, and it works quite well. Physically, AFAIK, they are the same, but this would be better answered with a phone call to Dell. The other issue you may run into is firmware updates.

Edit: There are many people that have run H710’s in 11th Gen PE’s successfully.

Thanks for your input. Yeah I originally was only looking at H710/P but then recently saw some great deals on used H730. Also, it’s been several months since I looked at vSAN. but I believe the H730 supports the true passthrough rather than H710 single disk RAID0’s. I maybe incorrect here. Idea was to get supported vSAN card, go local storage for now, then have vSAN option later.

Left company that was Dell partner to get special help from Dell. Out of warranty server + unsupported config I highly doubt they would be of assistance. Which is why I came here. Thanks for help 🙂

Curious on your T610s config. Are you using Dell branded SAS disks?

For this lab upgrade I’ve been considering 1x Intel 750 + 2x Intel 730s + 4-6 WD RE 4TB. In the past, I’ve setup a R710 using H700 and Intel 730s that work quite well when all caching is disabled on RAID group. Also have few 1TB WD REs in my T610 currently that work just fine. Believe 4TB REs work too. Just little complaints in Openmanage.

After thinking about it, after posting last night, another advantage of the H730 is that it supports 4Kn drives. I do not know if this a factor for you or not, but is another thing to consider.

I am running Dell branded drives. I originally was looking at going with HGST Ultrastar 7K4000’s, but I found brand new Dell branded drives, with tray, for about the same cost as going the HGST route when you consider that I would have needed to buy 4 additional trays. I ordered a Dell part number that should have been WD4001FYYG’s but they sent me Seagate ST4000NM0025’s. They were indeed brand new, had a DOM of Sept2016, and were mounted in real Dell trays, so I did not complain. To be honest, I have had great luck with Seagate drives. Over the last 20 years I have never had one fail prematurely on me, but their reputation after the 2011 floods has made me leery of the large capacity 3.5FF Seagate’s, and I have tended to use WD or HGST/Hitachi drives for the last 5 years.

In this setup I’m running Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 on a 64GB Transcend SSD370, connected to the SATA_B port on the MoBo, and two Server 2012 R2 VM’s on the OBR10 mentioned in my above post. I know putting the hypervisor on an SSD is a waste, but at $39.99 it was a more cost effective, and easier, setup than going with a USB flash drive that is on Microsoft’s hardware compatibility list. I mounted the SSD on a plate that sits in between the top of the backplane drive cage and the bottom of the lower 5 1/4″ drive bay, there is about a 1 1/2″ space available there.

Thanks for all the details on your setup.

Good point on 4K. I’ll read up on that. I haven’t given too much attention to 4K. VMFS5 only does 512B but do believe things have been changing with Vmware vSAN / vVOLs.

Update for anyone curious about this.

Ended up purchasing the H730P card along with some Intel 3710 SSDs

PERC H730P cannot fit into the normal PERC6i / H700 integrated slot without modifying case. Card does fit in the 2nd to top PCIE, believe slot 2. Mini SAS (SFF-8643) to Mini SAS (SFF-8087) cable for T610 backplane.

Everything is working as one would hope. Auto imported existing Virtual disks, firmware update via Dell live DVD, Openmanage fully functional, no DRAC alarms, newer Passthrough mode + RAID simultaneously.

Based on my experience here, I’d say there is high probability of no issues with PERC H730/P in older 11th gen servers.

[QUOTE] The main advantage of the H730 over the H700/H710 cards is that it uses the PCIe 3.0 bus, which has twice the bandwidth of the v2.0 PCIe found on the earlier cards. Because the T610 is PCIe 2.0 you will not be able to utilize this extra speed.[/QUOTE]

This is not correct. You can’t set it in the text-based version, but if you go into BIOS and hardware settings (where you can set the NICs and raid controllers), then controller settings you can set it to «Gen 3» which puts it in PCIe3 mode. We saw a substantial increase in performance in doing so with many drives.

Ability to enable transfer rate settings to PCIe Gen 3 on controllers that support it.

Well, actually I am correct because your link refers to this feature being available on 12th generation Dell servers and we are talking about an 11th generation Dell server. Yes it does apply to the H710 controller, and to be honest I did not know that you could bump these up to PCIe 3.0. But my point was that there would be no benefit from installing a PCIe 3.0 card, over a PCIe 2.0 card, in an 11th generation Dell server, not whether or not an H710 is capable of PCIe 3.0 speeds.

So before you go off and tell people that they are incorrect, maybe you should read the post a second time to make sure you taking in what is written in the correct context.

Just wondering how the H730 in the T610 is going, any issues so far?

I’m currently looking at doing the same.

Update for anyone curious about this.

Ended up purchasing the H730P card along with some Intel 3710 SSDs

PERC H730P cannot fit into the normal PERC6i / H700 integrated slot without modifying case. Card does fit in the 2nd to top PCIE, believe slot 2. Mini SAS (SFF-8643) to Mini SAS (SFF-8087) cable for T610 backplane.

Everything is working as one would hope. Auto imported existing Virtual disks, firmware update via Dell live DVD, Openmanage fully functional, no DRAC alarms, newer Passthrough mode + RAID simultaneously.

Based on my experience here, I’d say there is high probability of no issues with PERC H730/P in older 11th gen servers.

I am also trying this with an R710 & H730P.

Do you have the vendor and part numbers for the SAS cables that you purchased to make this work?

To add to the above answer; I have always had good results with Cable Matters branded cables.

I need to open the server up to verify that the straight SFF-8087 will clear the fan cage. My current ones are right angle.

Not sure this applies to this thread at all but I’m looking at the H740p for a Dell Precision R5500. No clue if it’s going to work but like the integrated battery even though I think I can reuse my existing PERC 6/i battery with an H700 but figured I’d try to get the latest model I can find for a decent price for future use and support. Plus 8GB cache. Think I need a cable like what you posted but shorter and the 8087 part has to be right angle for my backplane.

Somewhat curious with all the threads about compatibility. I mean technically these cards should work in all motherboards give or take performance no?

Edited Jul 7, 2019 at 15:20 UTC

Briefly looked up the Dell Precision R5500 as not had too much experience with Precision. Not sure what OS your aiming for but did lookup its system management drivers and did not see any Openmanage available for win10/7. Not sure if the R5500 even allowed for online RAID management with the supported PERC6. If not — then you’d be look at needing to do offline RAID/disk management in cards BIOS.

As far as performance hit with new PERCS in older systems — it’s just the potential bottleneck of the PCIE 2.0 on mobo as the cards are PCIE 3.0 However this really only an issue if you had lots of 12Gbps SSDs. Both 740p & 730p are designed for Poweredges with 16x or 24x backplanes/Sas expanders. I’d have to do some math if the native 8 connections with ssds can even go beyond PCIE2. Then even if 8 disks could — would they all be using full bandwidth at same time. So generally speaking the 730p/740p card is overkill for small disk array use. Reason I went for 730p in 11gen poweredge was for vmware VSAN support — controller has need queue depths and ongoing firmware/driver development. And at time didn’t see huge price difference between P and non P model. (VSAN doesn’t even use controller cache as all disks in passthrough mode.)

If your using spinning disks the controller’s cache will be used in right back mode for sure. If your going all SSD — I’d look at what Dell says about pure SSD arrays on the 740p. They may say to go write through and not even use controllers cache. In which you might be able to save a bit by not going for a P model.

I did some testing on H700 while back and enabling controller cache did indeed slow down some SATA SSD RAID1s. SSDs are faster than its cache. Maybe similar to newer PERCs.

Gots to get going here — when have time see if can locate a right angle cable.