Kev's Development Toolbox

March 13, 2019March 13, 2019

Adding a new logical RAID array to a HP DL380 G7 server

A while back I added my first disks to my $150 eBay HP DL380 G7 server – if you’re looking for steps on how to get to the RAID settings on the DL380 server, see my previous post here.

I recently started to run out of space on the 2 drives I’d installed previously, so time to add some more storage. I added a couple of cheap refurbished WD Blue drives described here, and I have a step by step post on physically installing the drives here.

Now the drives are installed, I need to add them to the RAID controller. After the POST tests, hit F8 to get to the iLO setup, and then exit, per the steps described in my earlier post here.

Press F8 when prompted to get to the RAID setup:

Select ‘Create a Logical Drive’ – here I’m adding a new RAID array with my 2 newly inserted drives:

I selected the 2 newly installed 1TB drives, in a RAID 1+0 config:

F8 to save:

Saved:

… and now I have 2 RAID arrays, the first one I added at a 750GB RAID 1+0 array, and now the new 1TB RAID 1+0 array:

In the next post I’ll show adding a new store in ESXi to use the new space on this new RAID array.

March 9, 2019March 9, 2019

Observing HF Propagation on 20m from US West Coast to East Coast

Spent a few mins operating FT8, and PSKReporter is showing 2 very distinct bands of reception reports, at approx 1200 miles and 2400 miles to the East from my location in Davis, CA:

I’m guessing the first band is propagation with 1 hop and the second band on the East coast is the second hop. It very distinctly shows how in between these two areas there’s noticeable dead zones where I’m not being heard at all. Very interesting!

March 3, 2019March 3, 2019

Paste and Match Style on MacOS

I can never remember this key combo – when pasting content from a webpage to somewhere else like Evernote, it’s incredibly useful to be able to paste just as plain text. Honestly, I don’t know why this isn’t the default behavior on the Mac.

Shift-Command-V

From here.

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019

Adding new drives to an HP DL380 G7 Homelab

I recently ran out of space on my Homelab ESXi running on my HP DL380 G7 server, so it’s time to add some more storage. First, I checked the list of supported drives known not to have the thermal runaway issue on the DL380 and similar models. I have a couple of WD Blacks right now, but the model numbers on those are hit and miss, some models work, some don’t, and I couldn’t find the exactly same model number on sale again (the working model I have is WD7500BPKX). I noticed though there’s a longer list of WD Blue drives that are known to work ok, and looking on Amazon I found some refurb 1TB drives for $40. Since this is just a hobby server and I don’t need to store anything critical on there, this sounded like a good deal.

I needed a couple of extra drive caddies too, here’s what I picked up:

2x KKmoon HHD Tray Bracket For HP G7 2.5″ Drive Caddy SAS SATA 371593-001 DL380 DL370 DL360 G5 G6 G7″
2x WD Blue 1TB Mobile Hard Disk Drive – 5400 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 128MB Cache 2.5 Inch – WD10SPZX (Certified Refurbished)

The WD drives arrived same day from Amazon – they were in sealed bags but obviously not the original packaging as they were refurbs. They were also wrapped in plenty of bubblewrap which was plenty adequate to protect them during shipping, and shipped in a Jiffy bag: