Hello everyone!

I have a small question for you guys. I currently have a server with a P420 PCIe RAID Card on it, the card itself gets really hot (at around 80-85C, even with an added fan on the heatsink. It is a DL380 G8e server with 10x8TB in a Hardware RAID 5 array.

My question is this: I know that I can put this card into IT mode (drive passthrough to the OS) but would this mean the card temperature would get lower ? I guess yes, but I want to know your experience !

Thank you !

  • catloafEnglish
    2·
    29 days ago

    That’s not “really hot”, a quick search suggests 85°C is the upper limit of normal operating temperature. The spec sheet for the HP P420 doesn’t list a formal temperature range.

    What’s the airflow through the case like? All the fans spinning at good speed? Rack servers are generally designed to operate in climate-controlled datacenters, but they’ll happily run in a lot of places.

    • Krafting@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      29 days ago

      well, it is the hottest part of the server, everything else run at 40-45C. Also, this temperature mean the fan spin up a bit too much for my tast, this is why I want to lower the temperature!

      The temperature doesn’t cause performance issue, it just cause the fans to speed up, plus this make my room hotter. Sometime the raid card runs at 60-65C too.

      • catloafEnglish
        1·
        29 days ago

        If that’s a concern, is there a SAS port directly on the motherboard? You could connect the backplane directly and then use software RAID like you want, and eliminate that card entirely.

        If not, yeah, IT mode would probably help. Or a plain HBA that does barely any processing at all.

        Also check your firmware version on the card. There might be an update that improves performance.

        • Krafting@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          29 days ago

          There is a SAS connector on the Motherboard, but I have 12 drives and I’m unsure if it would work. Nothing gets reported in the OS as another RAID controller on the OS.

          I thought about plain HBA too, but if I can avoid putting money for now ahah

          Firmware is the latest, I try to keep my systems up-to-date as much as possible!

          • catloafEnglish
            1·
            29 days ago

            Worth trying the port. Plug it in, remove the RAID card, and see if you get any disks in the BIOS or the OS (booting a live image if your OS is on the RAID). You might need to change some settings in the BIOS; I haven’t fiddled with HP servers.

            • Krafting@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              1·
              29 days ago

              I might try it, but for now I don’t really want to put the server offline for a test ahah, I’ll try to get info about this port tho.