I set up an 8 disk SATA RAID5 array in an HP DL380G5 with the included P400 SAS/SATA controller. The drives are 500G and I initially tried to create one big RAID5 array. I started out using the tools in the CMOS setup but you could only create one "logical" drive on your physical array that way. When I tried that, I had a 3.5TB "drive" that I created a 50G partition on to install Windows Server 2003 on. That worked ok, but I could only access the first 2TB of the array. I could not convert it to a GPT disk (greyed out) because I was booting from it. So there was no way to use the hundreds of GB above 2TB. The other problem was that it was incredibly slow for all writes, and any reads with smaller block sizes. It took forever to install Windows and the ATTO bench32.exe test showed horrible write performance (2 MB/sec for small and even medium block sizes).
I then used the Array tools built into the smartstart CD which allowed more flexibility in drive creation. I wiped the array and made a new 8 drive RAID5, but was able to make a small (50GB) logical drive for booting, and then split the rest of the drive between two large logical drives that were both under the 2TB "limit" (without having to convert to GPT). This was still horribly slow. I then made a 2 drive mirror out of the first two drives, and installed Windows on that. The performance was fine in ATTO as well as windows speed. I made a 6 drive RAID5 out of the rest of the drives, and split that into two logical drives (to keep under 2TB so I would not have to use GPT). The RAID5 part was still horribly slow. I looked at the drive status in the HP drive configuration tools, and it said the raid5 was still initializing (or something like that) so I let it go over the weekend and that message went away (status now "OK"). I repeated the ATTO benchmark and it is just as slow, but there is less variation in the numbers. Searching google and the HP forums, it seems many people are having these issues with the P400 card and some recommended adding the battery/more RAM option which I ordered. One person commented that he replaced the P400 with a P800 and that cured his speed problem. I have also ordered a P800. I have a funny feeling that the P800 is just a P400 that comes standard with the battery and extra RAM (512 vs 256) plus it has some external drive connectors on the back. Does anyone have any experience with this controller or tips for getting usable speed. I tested the speed over the network by sharing the RAID5 drive out and got horrible write speeds there too (I thought maybe Windows would do some caching of its own and maybe hide the slowness). Tom ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
