Add disk Storage Array to HP ProLiant DL360 G7 8-Port

Networking Networking Hardware
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I had gotten an HP DL360 to use as a FreeNAS unit for streaming my media. after some fiddling its running great. I’m running all SSD’s in it and it works great. The only bad part is that it only has 8 slots and 2tb drives are the biggest that it will read.

So i started looking into a Disk Storage Array such as an HP 2000P G3 24 disk, but im not sure how to attach it. It looks like i would need 4 external SAS ports to connect to the unit with no redundancy. The DL360 doesn’t come with external SAS connectors so i would need a PCIE expanshion card and i can’t seams to find one that has 4 internal connectors (2 from the existing raid card and 2 to the front drives) and 4 external connectors. If anyone knows of one that would be awesome.

I’m semi new to this server gear and could use some help. I’d like to just add on to this server before jumping to taking parts out of this and putting them in a different rack case with a motherboard and what not.

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Do you have only one PCIe slot?

If you have more then one 8x slot you can get a pair of cards, one for internal and another for external ports. FreeNas is fine with using multiple drive controllers at the same time.

Another thing you could to try is to replace the current card with say a Perc H310(flash it to HBA, available for ~$30 USD) to eliminate the 2tb limit.

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Unfortunately I only have 1 pcie x16 slot open the other has a 10gig nic in it.

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Here are a couple of models to look into-

LSI 9380-8I8E
Adaptec 78165
Intel SRCSASJV
HP 487204-B21(dunno about compatibility with this one)

1 Like
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I’ll take a look into those. Thank you