The H710 controller wasn't tested in the 11G server family, so I can't speak to whether or not it will work there. However, the connectors appear to be the same, and both should be a 6Gbps SAS connection, I don't believe 12Gbps SAS was introduced until the 13G. All that to say that I don't think that backplane and controller communication will be a problem, but controller and the rest of the system may be.
As for the PERC 6i and the H700, as far as I am aware, the PERC 6i doesn't support drives above 2TB, but the H700 should. I am going back through documentation to see if anything indicates that statement is incorrect, and I'll edit my post, if that's the case.
I'd be interested to know how this went for you. Recently acquired an R710 and the 6i was installed. Got the H700 and had a bit of a problem getting it going.
The very first issue was a boot halt that said the H700 installed in the integrated controller slot expected PCIe lane width of 4x but only saw 2x. No boot. I suspect this may be a player but have never seen anyone mention it....
"The two PowerEdge R710 PCI Express risers provide up to four expansion slots and one internal slot as follows: • Two x8 and two x4 PCI Express Gen2 slots, connected to the IOH • One x4 PCI Express Gen1 slot for internal storage, connected to the IOH"
Source Dell's TECHNICAL GUIDEBOOK, INSIDE THE POWEREDGE R710
The Dell H700 guide says:
"The PERC H700 Integrated card with two x4 internal mini-SAS ports supports the PCIe 2.0 x8 host interface."
So, placed the H700 in Riser 2 and was then seen as acceptable lane width to boot ( my backplane connectors were long enough but had to relocate the battery and associated cable). An inspection with lspci confirmed that the slot was 8x but the card only negotiated a 4x PCIe lane width. All BIOS and other firmware in the system were the latest available. At least up and running.
Fast forward to creating arrays. 3 HGST 3TB SAS drives in a RAID5, using background consistency check as initiated from the H700 BIOS, would have taken 9 days to complete. Whoa! So, more research....
Installed MegaRAID Storage Manager v15.03.01.00 (Avago) on a Ubuntu Server 4.15.0-46-generic to manage the RAID arrays and get a bit more control over the H700 (if you're really brave you can poke around with MegaCli64 and do some neat things, as I have, but I'd recommend not). Found out that if you killed the background consistency check and initiated a foreground consistency check via the MANAGE/INITIALIZE selection the times come down to a much more reasonable hours instead of days. The PROGRESS panel even shows elapsed/time-to-go vice just the percentage given by the H700 BIOS.
Dell-DylanJ
4 Operator
•
2.9K Posts
1
April 5th, 2019 08:00
The H710 controller wasn't tested in the 11G server family, so I can't speak to whether or not it will work there. However, the connectors appear to be the same, and both should be a 6Gbps SAS connection, I don't believe 12Gbps SAS was introduced until the 13G. All that to say that I don't think that backplane and controller communication will be a problem, but controller and the rest of the system may be.
As for the PERC 6i and the H700, as far as I am aware, the PERC 6i doesn't support drives above 2TB, but the H700 should. I am going back through documentation to see if anything indicates that statement is incorrect, and I'll edit my post, if that's the case.
D7rkN1ghtmare
1 Rookie
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2 Posts
0
April 5th, 2019 10:00
Just did some digging and found that the H700 does support 2TB+ drives so I just ordered one and a new set of sas cables to go with it. Thanks again.
RevBaker
1 Message
0
April 5th, 2019 18:00
I'd be interested to know how this went for you. Recently acquired an R710 and the 6i was installed. Got the H700 and had a bit of a problem getting it going.
The very first issue was a boot halt that said the H700 installed in the integrated controller slot expected PCIe lane width of 4x but only saw 2x. No boot. I suspect this may be a player but have never seen anyone mention it....
"The two PowerEdge R710 PCI Express risers provide up to four expansion slots and one internal slot
as follows:
• Two x8 and two x4 PCI Express Gen2 slots, connected to the IOH
• One x4 PCI Express Gen1 slot for internal storage, connected to the IOH"
Source Dell's TECHNICAL GUIDEBOOK, INSIDE THE POWEREDGE R710
The Dell H700 guide says:
"The PERC H700 Integrated card with two x4 internal mini-SAS ports supports the PCIe 2.0 x8
host interface."
So, placed the H700 in Riser 2 and was then seen as acceptable lane width to boot ( my backplane connectors were long enough but had to relocate the battery and associated cable). An inspection with lspci confirmed that the slot was 8x but the card only negotiated a 4x PCIe lane width. All BIOS and other firmware in the system were the latest available. At least up and running.
Fast forward to creating arrays. 3 HGST 3TB SAS drives in a RAID5, using background consistency check as initiated from the H700 BIOS, would have taken 9 days to complete. Whoa! So, more research....
Installed MegaRAID Storage Manager v15.03.01.00 (Avago) on a Ubuntu Server 4.15.0-46-generic to manage the RAID arrays and get a bit more control over the H700 (if you're really brave you can poke around with MegaCli64 and do some neat things, as I have, but I'd recommend not). Found out that if you killed the background consistency check and initiated a foreground consistency check via the MANAGE/INITIALIZE selection the times come down to a much more reasonable hours instead of days. The PROGRESS panel even shows elapsed/time-to-go vice just the percentage given by the H700 BIOS.
Wish you luck!