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We've purchased a HP Proliant DL120 G7, which has an onboard Smart Array B110i controller. In the server, we've bought 4 x Hitachi 4Tb SATA drives, mounted them in HP drive caddies and installed them in the server. However, the B110i controller only shows the drives as 1.8Tb:

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If we disable the B110i and use the AHCI controller instead, all 4Tb per drive is available. We'd really like to use the B110i if possible; does anyone know why the full drive capacity isn't available? According to the QuickSpecs, 4Tb drives are supported (and yes, I realise these aren't HP drives).

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And that's why pro's buy supported hardware combinations! –  Chopper3 Sep 11 '13 at 11:22
recent RAID controller firmware is installed? –  Striker_84 Sep 11 '13 at 11:38
@Chopper3: and that's why I'm asking here rather than directly to HP; I'll hand my "pro" badge back in immediately. –  KenD Sep 11 '13 at 11:48
@Striker_84: yes, tried bumping all the firmwares, everything's up to date :/ –  KenD Sep 11 '13 at 11:48
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up vote 3 down vote accepted

I swear, when I read questions like this, I wonder why people are even using 4TB disks in inexpensive servers with low-end controllers. Do you really need 8TB-12TB usable in a four disk setup? What are you storing?!?

Either way, the Smart Array B110i controller is not compatible with drives larger than 2TB in RAID. It's not well-documented or noted online, but you've run into a product limitation. Remember, this controller predates the introduction of 4TB disks by a bit.

If you need to use those specific 3rd party disks, then you're going to have to swap controllers or use software RAID.

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OK - this server is/was going to be a dumping ground for very infrequently-accessed, very unimportant but very large data that needs to be kept online. It was either that or a NAS, and re-using the server was a cheap (and according to the HP documentation, viable option). In no way was this designed to "cut corners", just trying to re-use hardware in a manner that the manufacturer suggests is possible! I wonder what would happen if we'd bought 4TB HP disks ... –  KenD Sep 11 '13 at 12:41
Possibly the same thing. The drives are supported with a Smart Array P410 controller. –  ewwhite Sep 11 '13 at 12:50
OK, thanks. We can use the AHCI mode; not as nice, but again this isn't anything "production" level. And the QuickSpecs are very deceiving - 4TB drives are listed as an option, with NO mention that the B110i won't support them. –  KenD Sep 11 '13 at 13:02
HP was very shady on this one. The controller is intentionally crippled and really part of the motherboard's BIOS. Earlier revisions of the embedded controller on G6 servers shows ">2TB drives not supported". –  ewwhite Sep 11 '13 at 13:10
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