Cable for Dell PERC H330 RAID Controller

Glad to know it's working out for you! I did some quick searches a while back but came up with nothing specific to the H330. The cables I saw were all for other cards in the PERC family. My own situation was just to get the thing working. Any critical issues I would need to be alerted to, I would rely on either OpenManage or the primary health LED of the server, which should indicate when something is amiss anyway. So in terms of the LED activity cable, nothing off the top of my head.

But given the nature of the indicator, I am pretty sure you should be able to just buy any standard motherboard IDC header cable to connect the card to the motherboard. Since it's just an LED, there shouldn't be an issue of you blowing anything out if the cable was in the wrong position. Just try all 4 available positions until you get the correct one. The only difference between Dell's cable and an IDC header is that Dell's has a nice clipping mechanism for the port. Otherwise, assuming you're not shaking the heck out of the box on a daily basis, an IDC connector should hold just fine.

Anyhow, Amazon ASIN: B00HNWPTDQ

If I can find spare staffing this Christmas Night, I'll be pulling all our PoS machines out and installing the new lineup of systems with server. That leaves me just tomorrow and Saturday to take one last look at the system before I seal it up. If I come across a cable, I'll report back!

HTC---If you are ever in the Long Island, NY area, I owe you a nice lunch.  Thanks for the part number.  I am still configuring the server but the performance is so much better I can't get over it.

For those header cables, I found another cable that is more suitable. These are single pin, easier to install. Amazon ASIN 

Hey, I'll hold you to that! We're actually based out of San Jose, CA but I do fly to Boston to visit family. Our next visit will most likely include a drive to New York to visit the sites. On another note, I have 3 spare 1TB drives from my T130 I no longer need (these are new, working pulls from the system I just setup). If these are something you would like to take off our hands, let me know with a PM so we can set something up. I also have 4x500GB spare as well. Also working pulls from our PoS machines that I migrated our existing SSD arrays to. 

If and when you get that header pin connector, let me know if it actually works for you and which pin directions you need to wire. It seems simple enough that I will probably buy a cable and do it as well. However, I've maxed out the patience of my bookkeeper who wants the system operational before New Year's so I need to close up the server in the coming days (it's been literally sitting on its side with the cover off).

If you don't mind me asking, what are the primary applications of your T130 servers? Have you ever considered trying an SSD array in RAID5?  

HTC---

Thanks, but i don't need any more drives at the moment.  My servers support a small consulting business.

For once, I may be able to help you.  I ordered another T130 this week which included a PERC H330 controller.  I noticed on the build list the following item:

470-ABQH Dell Perc H330 LED cable

I could not find the cable on Dell's website.  I called ProSuppor: they told me the Dell part number for the cable is T3D32.  I still could not find it on Dell's website, so I went to Small Business Sales and opened a chat session with the part group.  They were able to find the cable, which I purchased for $2.76.

AWESOME, thank you for that! I've been sick the past couple of days so haven't been at work. By chance, do you know where on the motherboard the cable should connect to? I'm looking on the manual but do not see an LED indicator port. 

$2.76 is quite reasonable ... cheaper than the IDC cables I was looking at, lol.

HTC---

When I contacted Dell ProSupport about the cable part number, I also asked them where I plug it in on the T130's motherboard.  The tech sent me the picture I attached tot his post.  I am happy to return the favor and help you.  Have a Merry Christmas!!!

I don't see the photo, but I did come back to work today. I see the port at the front most part of the board.

But onto something of a different nature. Don't know if you can test this for me, but can you attach one of your hard drives to the onboard SATA connector to see if the BIOS recognizes it at boot? For some reason, I cannot get anything to recognize on my board except the CD ROM and I'm not sure why. Funny thing is that whatever I plug into the SATA port will not recognize at boot, but will recognize and work just fine within Windows. So I'm not sure what the deal is.

When you saw it as a UEFI boot device, was this in the device manager in Windows or was this in the BIOS setup? Currently in my BIOS, I do not see any settings specific to the onboard SATA controllers. I only see a setting for AHCI/RAID for the miniSAS port. When I plug in a drive to the spare SATA, the BIOS doesn't see anything at all, which is really strange! It sees the CD ROM drive just fine, but nothing shows up in the BIOS or BIOS boot options. The drive seems to only be accessible when I'm booted into Windows, which kind of throws a kink in my plan. I'm waiting on an adapter to wire this through the onboard USB instead, but if I could get the drive working on SATA, it would be a much more ideal situation.

My servers are all configured for UEFI, not legacy BIOS.  When you press F2 for system setup, you have 3 options: System Settings, Lifecycle Controller, Device Manager.  For this to work, I had to go into System Settings, SATA, and switch the mode from RAID to ACHI.   After making that change, save your settings which will result in the T130 resetting itself.

Once the server restarts, go back into System Setup->System Settings->SATA.  Verify that the server sees your SATA hard drives.   If it does, boot off a UEFI USB key.  I use Windows Server 2016 Standard, so my 8Gb USB key is GPT formatted with UEFI boot.   Once Windows loads, go to install the operating system.  Select custom installation, and you should a see list of all your drives.  If you install Windows on the SATA drive, it will become bootable after Windows is installed.  Please note that you will not see the SATA drive listed as a boot device until after Windows loader installs a Windows MBR.

Thank you for the guidance. So my default is already on AHCI. When I plug in that drive to the port, the BIOS doesn't see the drive as a boot option nor as a status update while "initializing SATA devices" at the info screen (it does show the CD ROM though). So based on what you just said, that is normal behavior if the drive is blank? And so long as it has an MBR written to it, it will then show up?

What I'm trying to do is install a 5th HDD to the server where I store periodic recovery images created using a bootable USB imaging tool. It was really frustrating because when I booted from my USB imaging tool, it too, did not even see the drive! But the odd thing is that while in Windows, the drive appears and functions normally! If all else fails, I've adapted the onboard USB to take this mSATA card I'm using as a 5th drive. 

Thanks in advance,

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

HTC--

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you too!!

You are correct: until you install a bootable OS on the SATA drive, it will not appear in the list of bootable devices.   This is normal behavior, but the key is to make the SATA drive bootable by installing an OS on it with a MBR.  If you format the SATA drive to use in your current environment (as an additional drive), it will NOT appear in the list of bootable devices.

Your bootable USB key may not see the drive as it may be missing the drivers for the on-board SATA controller.  Try the following if you can to confirm: download the Windows Server 2016 trial ISO.  You will need a USB stick that is 8Gb or larger.  Download Rufus to create a GPT UEFI (or BIOS if that is what you use but do not select the option for both) and "burn" the Windows Server 2016 on the USB stick.  Boot with the USB key, select custom install, and verify that Windows sees the SATA drive.  You do not need to install Windows Server 2016.

Here is the link for Rufus:

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Hah, I wish I had asked this question last week before I went out and ordered more components. When I get back to the market after the holiday, I will go and image something bootable to that drive (yes, used rufus to make my Windows 7 images - hit and miss on others though). The imaging software I'm using seems to have pretty good all around driver support, even for RAID cards in all sorts of configurations. I'm leaning toward the idea that perhaps the BIOS is not giving sata drive access to the software in its current, non-MBR state. If it turns out that it really is a driver issue, I will have to just throw this drive onto the USB port instead. Otherwise, it would kind of defeat the purpose of having a target drive to send my system images if the imaging software can't see it! 

Thank you again,

Chuck

Chuck---

Are your servers booting in UEFI or legacy BIOS mode?  IMO you are better off with UEFI.   The Dell PERC H330 is actually an LSI controller, so the drivers are readily available.  The T130 motherboard is an Intel C236 chipset which was released about a year ago.   With the motherboard configured as ACHI (not RAID) there should be no driver issues either.  RAID mode is a different story as the drivers must downloaded from Dell or Intel.