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RAID Card temperature

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 !

Moonrise2473 ,

Mine it’s also pretty hot, and i use it in IT mode

Krafting OP ,
@Krafting@lemmy.world avatar

How hot ? and what model ? is it the same ?

Moonrise2473 ,

I think it’s h300

Don’t know how hot as I don’t know how to read it (using a consumer mobo with no ipmi) but it’s “your finger will burn” hot

catloaf ,

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 OP ,
@Krafting@lemmy.world avatar

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.

catloaf ,

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 OP ,
@Krafting@lemmy.world avatar

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!

catloaf ,

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 OP ,
@Krafting@lemmy.world avatar

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.

BearOfaTime ,

It probably would lower the temp because the on-board cpu would no longer be doing the RAID controlling.

All that work would be offloaded to the system CPU and whatever software you use to control the RAID setup (TrueNAS, Proxmox, UnRAID, etc).

Of course this would mean backing up all the data on those drives (which you’re already doing, right) and rebuilding the array with the software you choose.

Krafting OP ,
@Krafting@lemmy.world avatar

This is exaclty what I think too. But does anyone have tested this and is the theory same as in reality?

Backup up is not an issue of course! Restoring either, 10GB cards at the rescue!

BearOfaTime ,

Every circumstance is different, but undoubtedly the RAID cpu temp will drop since it’s not doing anything.

Also, it seems the direction today for self holsters is software RAID, which I can get behind because I’ve had RAID cards die, and when they can’t be replaced, you’re out of luck.

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