How to upgrade HP Z840 workstation to SAS-3 12Gbps HBA | HP H240

A customer contacted me on eBay and asked me how to upgrade his HP Z840 workstation to support SAS-3. I had never thought about doing such an upgrade until then, but quickly realized there are limited options for such an upgrade due to the cabling of the 4 internal bays, which are connected by 4 SATA connectors. Most LSI SAS-3 controllers use SFF-8643 connectors. So, in order to connect the 4 internal drive bays, one would need a SFF-8643 to 4x Male SATA cable, which I have never seen before. As I was thinking this over with the customer, I had the idea of using the HP H240 HBA with the special HP 676918-001 SFF-8087 to 4x Male SATA cable! What is special about the HP H240 is that it is a SAS-3 controller that uses SFF-8087 connectors! However, I have never done such an upgrade before, and I never like to make a recommendation unless I know for sure it would work. For example, it is possible the HP H240 could conflict with the Z840 workstation. So, I wanted to make a video to test out this configuration and confirm if it is or isn't a viable solution to upgrade the HP Z840 with SAS-3 capabilities.
Components mentioned in this video available at my eBay store:
1) HP H240 SAS-3 HBA card: ebay.to/3r15qez
2) HP Z800 Z820 Z840 SFF-8087 to 4xMale SATA adapter cable: ebay.to/2OR3oAp
2) HP Z800 Z820 Z840 SFF-8087 to 4xMale SATA adapter cable (alternative): ebay.to/3llIlCo
If you'd like to support this channel, please consider shopping at my eBay store: ebay.to/2ZKBFDM
eBay Partner Affiliate disclosure:
The eBay links in this video description are eBay partner affiliate links. By using these links to shop on eBay, you support my channel, at no additional cost to you. Even if you do not buy from the ART OF SERVER eBay store, any purchases you make on eBay via these links, will help support my channel. Please consider using them for your eBay shopping. Thank you for all your support! :-)

[@flintlock1]

Thanks for the video. I have just done this upgrade with the exact same HP Controller card on my Z840, and as you suggested on the video, I have also added a SAS Icy dock 4 drive MB994SP-4S as I found that the two 1.6tb 12gbs Hgst Husmm141clar1600 SSD drives that I had, and wanted to use as cache drives were 15mm high, and only this particular Icy dock unit would suit. So with the 4x4tb 3.5" 12gbs SAS Internal drives, 2x2tb HP 2.5" 12gbs drives in the other two Icy dock bays, I am now sorted for fast onboard storage. With the option of adding another Icy dock unit for four more drives too, if I got another of the same controller card.

[@ArtofServer]

Congrats! Glad this was helpful! :-) thanks for watching!

[@sogndal94]

HP H240 is a really nice card. I think it is the most versatile HBA/raid-cards i have.

[@ArtofServer]

Have you used it much as a HW RAID card? Or mostly as HBA only?

[@sogndal94]

@@ArtofServer I have only used it as a HBA for Windows storagespaces and BTFS :)

[@ArtofServer]

It's a very good HBA!

[@e-vd]

I can't quote statistics at the moment, but I've been very pleased with the apparent performance of the built-in LSI-2308 RAID controller on the Z840. There's also a built-in Intel with RSTe RAID controller that's supposed to be even more performant than the LSI controller on the Z840.

[@ArtofServer]

Indeed! The only negative I have about the onboard LSI SAS2308 controller is that HP cut half the PCIe lanes. It is a PCIe 3.0 x8 capable chip, but if you check, it is connecting at PCIe 3.0 x4. This is enough bandwidth for HDD and a few SSDs, but it won't be enough if you're using something like 8x SSDs.

[@GeoffSeeley]

I had to hunt down those HP adapter cables over a year ago for a similar conversion of Corsair 900D hot-swap bays (SATA) to an HBA. Rare adapters! I also have one of those H240 in HBA mode on a Proxmox host, nice card even if not an LSI chip.

[@normanmaucha]

Awesome channel bro keep up the good work 👍🏾

[@ArtofServer]

Thank you! Thanks for watching!

[@Wheel333]

Nice, ty. Looking forward to the NVME setup.

[@UnkyjoesPlayhouse]

better late than never, now to watch the video, comments after :)

[@ArtofServer]

Lol

[@erichankins2634]

Thanks for replying back to one of my questions on ebay! If you ever have a 16 port HBA card please let me know.

[@eric3434]

12GBps HBA for the lulz. But... Throw that HBA in the trashcan and get a raid controller. Like the LSI 9360-8i or the 9360-16i. (otherwise, reconsider what you are doing cause its not making sense). So with the LSI 9360-8I in your hand, It has an SFF8643 plug. The way to connect this is: SFF8643 -> 4x SATA breakout cable -> female-to-female sata adapter (a good sata3 one, not a sata2 one) -> HP sas/sata backplane. Still upvoted your video cause its interesting.

[@ArtofServer]

I think you probably missed the context that my channel and my ebay store are all focused on technologies like ZFS, software RAID, Unraid, etc., where HBA makes more sense than a hardware RAID controller. If your preference is for hardware RAID, that's fine but not the type of stuff I do anymore. I have nothing against hardware RAID, but the ZFS stuff is more interesting to me.

[@eric3434]

@@ArtofServer Ah, gotcha. Yes, i didn't know your focused on ZFS. ZFS is very good if you need the deduplication, but if not needing dedupe, your eating a penalty for the overhead of software raid so why use it? Everything's got a proper place and use case though. i do personally prefer to offload raid to a hardware raid controller when i just need raid. i need my procs to do the things procs are meant to do. You can still use SFF8643 -> 4x Sata Breakout cable -> male/male sata adapter to interconnect on the Z*20's and Z*40's if you run into this situation again. Maybe on the Z*00's too, but I am not familiar with them and couldn't say for certain.

[@zakhounet]

Hi, First of all thank you so much for your very inspiring video. So inspiring that I've bought a Z840 to setup a trueness server. I've followed your advice (9 reasons why ...) and so far so good except for the H240. the card just not launch, during the post I have the initializing step, as on your video but it seems that an error message appear but to quickly to read it). on Ubuntu or Win10 I can see the card lspci(Ubuntu) or Device management (win10) but : Ubuntu "sudo ssacli ctrl all show config detail" => error no controller installed Win10 Yellow exclamation point => device failed to launch Any leads, recommendations ? Did you change something on the Bios ? Thanks again for your video ;)

[@ArtofServer]

I'm glad my videos have been helpful to you. I'm very flattered that me fooling around with stuff has such a positive effect on others. :-) I'm not sure about the H240 issue you have.

[@zakhounet]

​@@ArtofServer on your side did you change somthing on the Bios or it has worked "out of the box " ?

[@9sarang99]

Great information, can you please make a video on HP P812 SAS controller, specially how to make it running on Ubuntu desktop

[@ArtofServer]

Sorry, don't have that controller. But thanks for watching!

[@paologianono2539]

HEY.......LOVE YOUR VERY INFORMATIVE VIDEOS. i have a question. i just recently bought an 8TB EXOS 7E8.(SAS drive) for my hp z820. I need an adopter........what do you recommend.......THANK YOU.

[@ArtofServer]

Thanks for your kind words. The Z820 has an onboard LSI sas2308 sas controller that should be capable of using that drive. I don't think there's a need for additional controller.

[@pieteryts]

Hi. I'm new to your channel. Great video and very detailed explaination. I have 1 questions about the HBA connection to the disk. sorry if I asked the same questions on who already asked. As far as I know, SAS are dual port. they are using 2 physical SATA connection to achieve the bandwidth (as you think SAS3 are 12Gbps, and SATA are 6Gbps which are double the speed, hence the dual port). And you are connect your SSD to the controller on 12Gbps speed, have you check the throughput? But if you connect SATA drive to a SAS port, the drive would use single port hence only achieve 6Gbps (max SATA3 speed). but if you connect SAS drive, it would utilize 12Gbps because dual port being utilized. Or did I wrong about it? I'm getting a Z840 on a great deal soon. There's when I caught up on your vids.

[@ArtofServer]

Although most SAS storage devices are dual port, that doesn't mean the controller has dual ports to the SAS devices. To utilize both ports, you need a dual port backplane, and dual controllers and software to load balance the I/O. The 12Gbps link speed is not due to the dual ports, it is simply a faster protocol. So, even with a single port connection, you can get "up to" 12Gbps of transfer speeds, but your storage device must have the performance to achieve that. For example, SAS-3 HDDs may link at 12Gbps, but can only transfer up to around 2Gbps.

[@pieteryts]

@@ArtofServer Yes. Z workstation although using SAS drive most of the case, the backplane are using only single port. That's why they leave the concept entirely and switch to U.2 port perhaps? Most server I manage are using SAS, and they only utilize single RAID card and able to fully utilize the dual port SAS. I mainly use Z620 at work, and now I understand why my RAID 0 SSD are can only achieve 1GBps bandwidth. Been planning for the Z840 storage topology. I guess nVME are the most appropriate way to go for main storage. leaving the hotswap bay for large bulk storage. Thank you for your great explaination.

[@andrewbergman9315]

I installed one an H240 in my Z800 but cannot seem to enter the configuration setup utility, it shows it detected after the onboard LSI SAS controller but does not tell me a key to press. Any suggestions?

[@ArtofServer]

The HP H240 doesn't have a ROM program that can manage the card in pre-boot environment. You can try to use their ssacli tool, but I had limited success with it.

[@jackalos007]

Hi, Thank you very much for this informative video. I tried installing this card (in HBA mode) in an Unraid server with Supermicro motherboard but I get the following strange error. Do you have any suggestions? kernel: HP HPSA Driver (v 3.4.20-200) kernel: hpsa 0000:04:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control ... kernel: hpsa 0000:03:00.0: board not ready, timed out. haveged: haveged starting up

[@rippedanny]

Does it also work with the z800? I have a sas3 SSD and would like to use it at maximum speed 12Gbps. I use a Nvme SSD (Crucial P3) as fast storage with a passive adapter on an 8x port and with CrystalDiskMark both write/read speeds are 1700Mb/s, so I assume that's the limit of PCI-E 2.0, am I wrong?

[@ArtofServer]

you can probably install a SAS-3 controller and connect those SSDs, however, the Z800 is PCIe 2.0 and SAS-3 SSDs will overwhelm the PCIe bus really quickly.

[@GoferZeroSix]

So I have a HP Z620 with 3 gray SATA ports on the mobo that run slots 0,1 & 2. I have all three filled and am trying to add one more 1TB HDD. I have 3 additional white SATA ports next to the gray ones and then two black SATA ports on top of the mobo and two on the edge where the cdrom was plugged it. I tried all of the ports but none seem to work with my 4th HDD. I recently installed Intel RSTe AHCI/RAID Driver 4.6.0.1085 which allowed me to add the 3rd drive to my system (last of the gray SATA ports) but is there a way to get that 4th drive to work on any of the remaining mobo SATA ports?

[@andriitarykin9567]

thank you!

[@ArtofServer]

thanks for watching!!! :-)

[@graczmisiek4131]

Where can I find a cable that supports 12Gbps per drive Samsung PM1643 15.36TB with SFF-8482 connector? All the cables on ebay from SFF-8087 to 29pin SFF-8482(x4) claim to only be 3Gbps or 6Gbps per drive not 12Gbps. which means that a cable must support 48Gbps in total. I can't find a cable like that anywhere.

[@stevietee3878]

After following your instructions my HP Z840 won't post with the HP H240 installed it just hangs with the message "slot?? HPE Smart HBA H240 Controller 1805-Slot ?? Drive Array - Cache Module Super-Cap is not installed. Important: Unsupported Configuration cache Module Functionality is limited. Action: Install the Super-Cap to remove these limitations.1785-Slot??Drive Array Not Configured. No Drives Detected." (There was no physical drive installed) Can you suggest a solution please ?

[@ArtofServer]

I've seen some H240 all of a sudden start reporting that "cache module super-cap" error. It's really strange and I'm not sure why it does that some times. I would suggest trying to disable the Option ROM for the slot you installed the H240, then if it boots up past POST, use the ssacli tool to reset the firmware configuration. See if there's a setting to clear the cache too, if so do it.

[@wckdkl0wn]

Can this exact install be done on a z800 as well?

[@ArtofServer]

you can, but the PCIe 2.0 bus is going to really limit you.

[@mindshelfpro]

The SAS controller on my HP Z800 has totally disappeared from the startup. I cleaned the motherboard, reset BIOS to defaults and still no luck with SAS Option ROM download enabled in the BIOS. Is there a way to fix this? Can I use the SAS 3 card in this video with the HP Z800? Thanks.

[@ArtofServer]

Check the system BIOS settings. There's a setting in there to disable the onboard SAS controller - check that it is not disabled. If the onboard SAS controller is dead for some other reason, well, it's time to upgrade to SAS-2 at least then! See this video on how to do that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZa0eqR5htOpq7M You can also upgrade to SAS-3 like in this video with the Z840, but it's not really worth it because Z800 is PCIe 2.0, and the PCIe bus will bottleneck the SAS-3 SSDs. I think upgrading to SAS-2 makes the most sense.

[@charlesturner897]

All of the hp p/hx40 series use sff-8087

[@KevinSmith-jp3vn]

Are there any limitations to the HBA or the SAS-3 drive or can they be used normally ?

[@ArtofServer]

To use as a data drive, no problems. I have not figured out how to get the H240 to boot though.. so probably no good as a boot drive.

[@andrewbergman9315]

@@ArtofServer agh this is not what I wanted to see, refer to my other comment. I guess booting ESXi from a USB stick will have to be the way forward then.

[@levelnine123]

nice video as allways :') can you upload you desktop background ?

[@ArtofServer]

You guys really want my desktop wallpaper??? LOL

[@levelnine123]

@@ArtofServer yes PLZ!

[@ArtofServer]

artofserver.com/downloads/wallpapers/aos_wallpaper.png

[@jamespelton6135]

Does the rake and upgrade disable the onboard SAS?

[@ArtofServer]

no.

[@jasongomes7186]

Hey I make website and I wanna learn how to host a website on Dell r710 can you make a video on it????

[@imrenagy8122]

Hi> I have HP Z840 workstation. IntelR xeon CPU E5-2680 V3 2.50 GHz. I have a question. can i change two processors high kategory? This.... Intel Xeon E5-2690 V4 CPU Processor 14 Core 2.60GHZ 35MB L3 Cache 135W SR2N2 .

[@ArtofServer]

yes, you should be able to, but make sure you have the necessary BIOS update before you swap CPUs. I have a video here showing how to update the BIOS.

[@imrenagy8122]

@@ArtofServer Amazing.Thanks. I buy new processors now thank you for informations.