Help with setting up SAS/SATA in SR1550ALSASR

[BSeyi]

Hello,

I bought Intel server SR1550ALSASR and I have been struggling to set it up for three weeks.

The seller told me that the server takes either 2.5" SAS or SATA, so I first bought 2TB of SATA but only to realise that whereas the embedded RAID sees the disks, the BIOS doesn't. The server has 'Active SAS/SATA Mid-Plane'. I also bought SAS disks and tried that too but again, the embedded RAID can find the disks but the AMI BIOS F2 Setup doesn't show any disk.

I have many years experience of setting up and using servers, and they usually take me a few hours, but this Intel server has been a nightmare to set-up.

What could I be doing wrong:

1. I have updated the BIOS and firmwares.

2. The SAS are made by HP; and SATA are by Seagate, but none is seen in the BIOS Setup screen.3. On POST, I can see the disks light on briefly.4. I can configure both the SAS and SATA disks in the embedded RAID (using RAID 0).5. I try to set up Linux using LVM (instead) but this failed too due to the disk detection.I wonder what is different about this Intel SR1550ALSASR server from other servers that I have used and still use.

Thanks (and excuse my tone).

[Daniel_O_Intel]

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/CS-022920.htm Server Products — Hardware, Memory, and Operating System Compatibility only shows 3.5" sas, and all pretty old models. Do you have anything 600GB or smaller, 15k RPM, 16MB cache?

[BSeyi]

Hi,

Thanks for your respond. What I have actually tried are:

(10 4 x 500GB 2.5" Seagate Momentus 7200.4.

(2) 3 x 146 2.5" Seagate Savio 10K.3.

I found this link:

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/hdd_test_report_rev_23_0.pdf http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/hdd_test_report_rev_23_0.pdf [Revision – 1.3 October 2007]And saw the following compatible disks:Seagate* Momentus 7200.1 and 7200.1 2.5"Seagate Savio 10K.2, 147GB 2.5"

These are the closest to my Seagate Momentus 7200.4. and the Seagate Savio 10K.3 respectively.

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Additional question: //-------------------------------------------

Does the SR1550AL support JBOD or all disk must be install via RAID?

[SWood11]

ok so sounds like you have the active midplane that supports both SATA/SAS. this midplane is its own 8 port sata/sas controller and offers no jbod mode to release single drives to BIOS. try configuring a single drive as its own raid 0 to release to the BIOS (F2) and OS level.

see page 13 of pdf

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/d31972002_sr1550_user_guide_092506.pdf http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/d31972002_sr1550_user_guide_092506.pdf

[BSeyi]

Thanks but I am still having problem installing OS in the server.

1. After configuring the disk in RAID 0, I still don't see the disks in BIOS F2 display. Or is this normal?

2. I then try to install Linux on the server but it aborts every time -- due to (disk) formatting error.

Is there something I am missing between step # 1 and step # 2 above?

Thanks