The HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8 is a fantastic upgrade but does it support 4TB Drives? Lets find out!
After I was able to get my hands on one of these MicroServers I wanted to put it to the test.
As most of you know, HP states on just about all of their server products that only HP hard drives are supported. This is not true & I will show you here now that Western Digital & Seagate HDD’s work perfectly fine.
I will be testing with 2 drives.
Western Digital 4TB RED NAS HDD
Seagate 4TB Desktop HDD
Once both drives were installed I booted up the MicroServer & opened the RAID Console on boot.
Both 4TB Drives showed up in the Console.
I was able to successfully setup a RAID Array & install CentOS
4TB Drives are supported
Seagate & WD Drives are supported
If ever you have any hardware issues & you contact HP for support I have heard cases of HP refusing to support people who use non HP branded HDD’s in their Micro Servers. So if they ask you what brand HDD’s you have in your Micro Server make sure you say HP. Even if you are using WD or Seagate etc. This is just HP trying to control the market & force you into buying their overly expensive HDD’s.
Wath version of CentOs run ???
I was using freenas 9 not CentOS.
but CentOS 5.10 or 6.xx would be fine
did it come with the drive caddy’s? or did you have to buy those yourself?
Hi Dustin,
Yes it came with them.
Kind Regards,
Hi Sammit,
I own a Microserver Gen8 myself.
I have 4x WD Red 4TB disks and they randomly fail.
Tried raid1 raid10 raid0 and AHCI modus and all with the same result.
HP doesn’t give support because of the non hp branded disks.
I also tried 2x WD Red 4TB disks and that works without problem.
Adding 2x WD Green 2TB to the configuration and the problems start over.
If i have updates i will post it.
I haven’t had this issue at all, this sounds like a hardware fault. I would recommend taking the unit back to the store you got it from & asking for a replacement.
Sorry to hear about your bad experience.
I have the same problem – instal 4 x 4tb hard drive and fail, won’t work, from time to time don’t see hardweres.
Hi Sammit,
I want buy a Gen8 G2020t, but i want to use a 2Tb Seagate and Western Digital Desktop HDD, is it possible i use this drives on this microserver?
Because here in Brazil the HP HDD drives is too expensive
Hi Ruy,
Yes normal Desktop HDD’s will be fine :)
Hey Sammit, thanks for u reply, im now with my Gen8 G2020t and now im going to upgrade to a Xeon 1270 and 16GB Ram…
What are u think about this?
Regards
Ruy
sounds fine, I am just wondering why you need so much RAM ?
Hey!
I have a problem:
1.) I want to install Debian or Ubuntu on my HP Mircoserver Gen8 with raid 10 ( i have 4x2TB in it), so i have 4TB of data… But the Installation see only the single HDDs not the RAID Array.. So How can I install Debian or Ubuntu on this Array? Which driver did i need??
2.) After I followed the HP installation (F10 – Intelligent Provisioning) of Windows Server 2012 R2 I only can use 2TB of this Array.. The other 1900GB was unlocated but I can see it.. Soo how can I use the other 1900GB of this RAID Array?
Pls help me! I spend the whole week to fix this problem, but no solution :/
Thank You!
Hi Chris,
First thing you need to do is backup all of your data from those HDD’s.
once you have done this you need to boot into the RAID controller bios & delete any previous arrays or configurations on those HDD’s.
now you should be able to create a RAID 10 array & should see 4TB available.
let me know how you go.
Sorry, i didnt say that I already did this steps.. I installed the raid10 in the raid controller successfully. But windows just can use 2TB of the array :/ and in Linux i can just see the single hdds ://
It sounds like you formatted the RAID Array incorrectly in Windows. You need to make sure you format it as a GPT volume to see/ use more the 2TB.
Also you need to make sure the latest chipset drivers are installed.
I recently had a problem with a HP Microserver. I phoned HP Support who basically told me to go away unless I had HP disks installed. So, if you don’t have HP disks any warranty is VOID!!!! Also note HP disks 3 times the price of standard disks. :(
When I call them I don’t tell them what HDD’s I use.
Your warranty isn’t void if you use non HP Drives… just call them back up & say you now have HP drives & just google the part number of some HP drives to tell them if they ask for a part number.
If your microserver is having a hardware failure & its under warranty regardless of the HDD’s you use they have to repair or replace it.
The HP Gen 8 Microserver spec says:
Maximum Internal Storage: Non-Hot Plug SATA 12TB (4 x 3TB) 3.5″ SATA
Your test has proved that 2 x 4TB (8TB) is a valid recognised install. Do you or anyone else know if this Microserver will recognise 4 x 4TB HDD (16TB in total).
Hi Ben,
4x 4TB Drives no problems at all. have also tested with 6TB Drives with no issues as well.
Hi Sammit, thank you for this info!
On this case using 4x 4TB disks, can you make a RAID1 with all of this disks or only RAID10?
Thanks!
Hi Fernando, Mirror raid will only work with 2 drives. in saying this you can do a Mirror raid of 2 striped arrays. this in known as a 0+1 raid array.
I can use CentOS 5.9 with this server??
You sure can!