Driver update during installation

[CZa]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to install CentOS 8 on an HP Proliant DL20 Gen9 with a HPE Dynamic Smart Array B140i Controller. Thus, I need to install the corresponding driver during the OS installation process, as described here:

https://docs.centos.org/en-US/centos/in ... ation_x86/

The driver I am supposedly installing is:

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public ... b464ee8909

After the driver has been selected and c is typed to continue the process, the message:

DD: Extracting: kmod-hpdsa

is displayed and no errors. I then continue with the instalation process, but the logical drive is not detected.

I suspect the driver is not correctly installed. I switched to a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F2) and ran cat /proc/modules, but the driver is not listed. Should it be listed there? In any other directory? How can I verify it was actually installed? Could I install it manually from there? how?

Thanks and best regards

[TrevorH]

Last time I looked, the Red Hat instructions for using the Bxxx FakeRAID controllers said that the best thing to do was to disable RAID mode in the controller BIOS and tell it to use AHCI and then use Linux software RAID to make up any arrays you need.

[CZa]

Thank you for your lightning-fast reply, TrevorH.

According to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/118133

Red Hat suggests what you say as an option, but I did not understand that it is their preferred option. I might end up doing what you said and forgetting about the Smart Array controller, but I have already wasted so much time trying to install it that it bothers me to give up now. Moreover, I installed CentOS 7 without any trouble.

Do you think the performance of the controller will be comparable to the linux software RAID?

Thanks again and best regards

[TrevorH]

As far I know, this controller is a FakeRAID one so all operations are done in software running on the host in exactly the same way as linux software RAID does. From that POV I would expect the performance to be much the same whichever you choose.

[CZa]

Thanks for your views, TrevorH.

In the end I switched to the latest smart array driver and that did the trick. Lets see how it performs now.

Best regards

[andytimofeev]

What was the driver version that helped you - did the CentOS detected the RAID and you did not require to create software RAID?