HPE 698535-B21 Getting Started Guide
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QuickSpecs
HP Smart Array P731m Controller
Overview
HP Smart Array P731m Controller
The HP Smart Array P731m is a PCI-Express (PCIe) 3.0 mezzanine card supporting direct attached and shared storage for the HP
ProLiant Gen8 BladeSystem servers. It is one of the highest performing controllers in the HP Smart Array portfolio supporting 6
Gb/s level bandwidth and provides enterprise level reliability, connectivity, and storage performance for HP Gen8 Blade servers
through its support of the latest SCSI technology and advanced RAID capabilities. The P731m can support up to 227 zoned direct
attached SAS or SATA drives, tape drives, and can connect to D3600, D3700, D2600, D2700 and D6000 Disk Enclosures. In
addition, the P731m can support the MSA2040 and P2000 G3.
What's New
HP Secure Encryption is supported on P731m as an option
HP Smart Array P731m with 512MB Flash Backed Write Cache
Supports D3000 Disk Enclosures
Models
HP Smart Array P731m/2GB FBWC 6Gb 4-ports Ext Mezzanine SAS Controller 698535-B21
HP Smart Array P731m/512 FBWC 6Gb 4-ports Ext Mezzanine SAS Controller 698536-B21
NOTE: HP Smart Array P731m/512MB Controller is only for shared storage connectivity to P2000 G3 or
MSA2040. For connecting to D3600/D3700/D2600/D2700/D6000, one must use P21m/2G FBWC controller.
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QuickSpecs
Standard Features
The Smart Array
Advantage
Key Features
HP's innovative design and integration work within the Smart Array family of products creates
customer value that is unmatched in the industry. Use of Smart Array products across multiple
applications results in a much lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than any other server storage RAID
product. The HP Smart Array family brings an unparalleled return on investment through:
Data Compatibility among most current shipping Smart Array controllers allows simple and easy
upgrades any time as needs for higher performance, capacity, and availability increase. Even
successive generations of Smart Array controllers understand the data format of other Smart Array
Controllers.
Consistent Configuration and Management Tools. Most current shipping Smart Array products utilize
a standard set of management and utility software. These tools minimize Total Cost of Ownership
(TCO) by reducing training requirements and technical expertise necessary to install and maintain HP
server storage.
Pre-Failure Warranty means HP Insight Manager not only reports when a drive is going to fail but
allows replacement of failing drives prior to actual failure. For complete details, consult the HP
Support Center or refer to your HP Server documentation.
HP Smart Array P731m Controller
Storage interface (SAS/SATA)
o Eight (8) 6 Gb/s SAS physical links distributed equally across 4 external 2x ports to
support up to four 6 Gb/s SAS Switches
o 6 Gb/s SAS technology delivers up to 600 MB/s theoretical bandwidth per physical
lane
o 6 Gb/s SATA technology delivers up to 600 MB/s theoretical bandwidth per physical
lane for directly attached SATA drives.
o Mix-and-match SAS and SATA drives to the same controller. Deploy drive technology
as needed to fit the computing environment.
o Support for SAS tape drives, SAS tape autoloaders and SAS tape libraries.
RAID controller features
o RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 50, 6, 60, 1 ADM, 10 ADM
o Recovery ROM protects against ROM corruption
HP Smart Cache feature (HP Smart Cache license is not required on P731m with 2 GiBytes
FBWC) is a controller-based read caching solution in a DAS environment that caches the most
frequently accessed data ("hot" data) onto lower latency SSDs to dynamically accelerate
application workloads.
HP SSD Smart Path feature included in the Smart Array software stack improves SSD read for
all RAID levels and RAID 0 write operations by optimizing the path to each SSD attached to the
controller
HP Secure Encryption, available as an option, is a Smart Array controller-based data
encryption solution for ProLiant Gen 8 servers that protects sensitive, mission critical data is
supported as an option
PCI Express Gen3 x8 link
2 GiBytes Flash Backed Write Cache (FBWC) provides read ahead caching and write back
caching with indefinite write cache data retention in the case of unexpected power outage.
Software consistency on most current shipping Smart Array family products: HP SmartStorage
Administrator, HP Systems Insight Manager, and HP Intelligent Provisioning. The HP Smart
Storage Administrator configures and manages a host of Smart Array controllers and other
storage devices using a single interface. It replaces the HP Array Configuration Utility (ACU)
with an updated design and configuration enhancements.
Online Management
Features
Online array expansion
Online capacity expansion
Online logical drive extension
Online RAID level migration
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QuickSpecs
Standard Features
Performance
Availability
Provides increased server uptime by providing advanced storage functionality:
HP Smart Array P731m Controller
Online stripe size migration
Online mirror split, recombine, and rollback
Online and high performance offline Rapid Parity Initialization (RPI)
Unlimited global online spares assignment
User selectable expand and rebuild priority
User selectable RAID level and stripe size
User selectable read and write cache sizes
Supports Predictive Spare Activation
Eight (8) 6 Gb/s SAS physical links distributed across 4 external 2x ports which supports up to
four 6 Gb/s SAS Switches
6 Gb/s SAS (600 MB/s theoretical bandwidth per physical lane)
PCIe 3 x8
2 GiBytes Flash Backed Write Cache or 512MB Flash Backed Write Cache
Online RAID level migration between any RAID levels
Online stripe size migration
Online capacity expansion
Online logical drive extension
Online active drive replacement
Online drive firmware upgrade
Unlimited global online spare
Fault Prevention
Fault Tolerance
The following features offer detection of possible failures before they occur, allowing preventive
action to be taken:
S.M.A.R.T.: Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology first developed at HP detects
possible hard disk failure before it occurs, allowing replacement of the component before
failure occurs.
Drive Parameter Tracking monitors drive operational parameters, predicting failure and
notifying the administrator.
Dynamic Sector Repairing continually performs background surface scans on the hard disk
drives during inactive periods and automatically remaps bad sectors, ensuring data integrity.
Smart Array Cache Tracking monitors integrity of controller cache, allowing pre-failure
preventative maintenance.
Keeps data available and server running while a failed drive is being replaced; several fault tolerance
configurations are supported including:
RAID 6 (Advanced Data Guarding): Supported with a minimum of 4 drives. This allocates two
sets of parity data across drives. This level of fault tolerance can withstand a double drive
failure without downtime or data loss.
RAID 60: Supported with a minimum of 8 drives. This volume is composed of two or more RAID
6 sub-volumes (parity groups) where data is striped across each parity group as if it were a
single physical drive. Each RAID 6 parity group can sustain up to two drive failures without
incurring data loss.
RAID 5 (Distributed Data Guarding): Supported with a minimum of 3 drives. This allocates one
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RETIRED: Retired products sold prior to the November 1, 2015 separation of Hewlett-Packard Company into Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company and HP Inc. may
have older product names and model numbers that differ from current models.
QuickSpecs
Standard Features
Fault Recovery
Minimizes downtime, reconstructs data, and facilitates a quick recovery from drive failure:
HP Smart Array P731m Controller
set of parity data across drives. This level of fault tolerance can withstand a single drive
failure without downtime or data loss.
RAID 50: Supported with a minimum of 6 drives. This volume is composed of two or more RAID
5 sub-volumes (parity groups) where data is striped across each parity group as if it were a
single physical drive. Each RAID 5 parity group can sustain a single drive failure without
incurring data loss.
RAID 1 & 10 (Drive Mirroring): Supported with a minimum of 2 drives. This allocates half of the
drive array to the data and the other half to the mirrored data, providing two copies of the
data.
RAID 1 ADM & 10 ADM (Advanced Data Mirroring): Supported with a minimum of 3 drives. RAID
1 ADM creates redundant copies of the data using 3 drives. RAID 10 ADM stripes data across
two or more sets of RAID 1 ADM volumes. This level of fault tolerance can withstand a double
drive failure within a RAID 1 ADM volume without downtime or data loss.
Recovery ROM: This feature protects the user from a firmware image corruption by storing a
redundant copy of the firmware image. If the active firmware image becomes corrupt, the
controller will use the redundant firmware image and continue operating.
On-Line Spares: There is no limit to the number of spare drives that can be installed prior to
drive failure. If a failure occurs, recovery begins with an On-Line Spare and data is
reconstructed automatically.
DRAM ECC detects and corrects data bit errors.
Ease of Use
HP SSD Smart Path
Consistency and upgradeability on most shipping Smart Array products make them unique in the
industry:
GUI based configuration, management and diagnostic software tools with the HP Smart
Storage Administrator
Common data format between generations of products
Data migration between servers and external Modular Smart Array enclosures and disk
enclosures
The HP SSD Smart Path feature included in the Smart Array software stack improves Solid State Disk
(SSD) read performance. With up to 4x better SSD read performance, HP SSD Smart Path chooses the
optimum path to the SSD and accelerates reads for all RAID levels and RAID 0 writes. HP SSD Smart
Path requires updated firmware, drivers, and configuration utility available at:
www.hp.com/go/ssdsmartpath. HP SSD Smart Path is ideal for read intensive workloads and is
included as a base feature on HP Smart Array P-series controllers. The following operating systems are
supported by the HP SSD Smart Path feature:
Microsoft Windows Server 2008
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
Microsoft Windows Server 2012
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SP1, SP2, SPA)
VMware ESXi 5.0 U3
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RETIRED: Retired products sold prior to the November 1, 2015 separation of Hewlett-Packard Company into Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company and HP Inc. may
have older product names and model numbers that differ from current models.
QuickSpecs
Standard Features
HP SmartCache
The HP SmartCache feature is a controller-based read caching solution in a DAS environment that
caches the most frequently accessed data ("hot" data) onto lower latency SSDs to dynamically
accelerate application workloads. The HP SmartCache architecture is flexible and supports any HP
ProLiant Gen8 supported HDD for bulk storage and any HP ProLiant Gen8 supported SSD as an
accelerator.
HP SmartCache is deployed and managed using the HP SmartStorage Administrator (HP SSA).
The basic HP SmartCache architecture is comprised of the following three elements:
HP Smart Array P731m Controller
VMware vSphere 5.1 U2 and vSphere 5.5
Bulk storage: The first element is the bulk storage device, which is any supported HDD
attached to the HP Smart Array controller.
Accelerator: The second element, the accelerator, is a faster/lower latency SSD device that
caches data.
Metadata: The final element is metadata, information held in a relatively small storage area
that maps the location of information residing on the accelerator and bulk storage devices.
HP Secure Encryption
For more information please visit: www.hp.com/go/smartcache.
HP Secure Encryption is a Smart Array controller-based data encryption solution for ProLiant Gen 8
servers that protects sensitive, mission critical data. This is an enterprise-class encryption solution for
data at rest on any bulk storage attached (with the exception of tape) to the supported HP Smart Array
Px3x family of controllers.
The solution is available for both local and remote deployments. Local Key Management Mode is
focused on single server deployment where there is one Master key per controller that is managed by
the user. All volumes still have their own unique key(s) for data encryption. Remote Key Management
Mode is for enterprise wide deployments and requires HP Integrated Lights Out (iLO) Advanced or Scale
Out editions v 1.40 or later and HP Enterprise Secure Key Manager (ESKM) 3.1 or any later release. The
HP ESKM manages all the encryption deployments from just a few servers to thousands of servers and
2 million keys per HP ESKM 3.1 cluster.
For more information please visit http://www.hp.com/go/hpsecureencryption
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