By: John Stutsman
Last week in Supplemental Cooling for my Gen8 MicroServer and P222 I illustrated some of the supplemental cooling techniques I would be showing at the Home Server Show Meetup on September 20, 2014 #BestMeetUpEver.
On September 10 HSS Forum member Saburr told us (and posted a link to HP’s download page) about the iLO4 Version 2.00 (9 Sept 2014) that had recently been posted by HP. So, I decided it would be a good idea to update iLO4 on my Gen8 and while at it I would update my J06 ROM BIOS to the 6/6/2014 version (link provided by HSS Forum member ad-d). Both updates went without incident using the Windows exe’s in Windows 8.1 (see As-Built in Supplemental Cooling for My Gen8 MicroServer and P222).
Firmware Version Info available with iLO4
Afterwards, I checked my BIOS to see that it was still set on “Increased Cooling”.
Under Advanced Options in BIOS the Thermal Configuration showed Increased Cooling
System Fan shows a Speed of 29% under Increased Cooling
These are the Temperature Readings for my Gen8 with all things being equal as described in “Supplemental Cooling For My Gen8 MicroServer and P222″ except for the BIOS J06 Upgrade and the iLO4 Upgrade
Temperatures I saw previously in “Supplemental Cooling For My Gen8 MicroServer and P222 BEFORE the BIOS J06 Upgrade and the iLO4 Upgrade. (Previously, the system Fan ran between 37% and 41%).
Drive Performance
I wanted to measure the performance of each logical drive in my Gen8 MicroServer using three programs for metrics that I’ve used in the past: 1) HD Tune Pro, 2) CDM (Crystal Disk Mark), and 3) ATTO. Because drive caching and the differences in drive caching on the B120i and the P222/512FBWC the ATTO readings appeared less meaningful for comparative purposes in my opinion.
The drives were arranged as follows (this is the same configuration in the As-Built in Supplemental Cooling for My Gen8 MicroServer and P222):
- OS Drive (C): 1 Corsair GT 240GB SSD (mounted in Icy Dock EZConvert MB882SP-1S-1B) in RAID0 on P222 512 FBWC Ports 1, Bay 1 of Main Drive Bay
- Working Drive 1 (D): 2 WD Red 1TB Model WD10JFCX in RAID1 on B120i Ports 3 & 4 mounted on SDM (“Schoondoggy Drive Mount”) plus Delta Electronics BFB0512LD for SDM cooling
- Working Drive 2 (E) (VM Drive): 2 Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD in RAID0 on B120i – Ports 1 & 2 of B120i & mounted in the ODD bay area
- Working Drive 3 (F): 3 ST3000DM001 in RAID5 on P222/512 FBWC – bays 2-4 of main drive bay
A total of 4 logical drives made up of 8 physical drives.
Drive C Performance with HD-Tune Pro, CDM, and ATTO (the RAID Caching made the ATTO scores less meaningful in my opinion but I’m posting them here for completeness).
Drive D Performance with HD-Tune Pro, CDM, and ATTO (the RAID Caching made the ATTO scores less meaningful in my opinion but I’m posting them here for completeness).
Drive E Performance with HD-Tune Pro, CDM, and ATTO (the RAID Caching made the ATTO scores less meaningful in my opinion but I’m posting them here for completeness).
Drive F Performance with HD-Tune Pro, CDM, and ATTO (the RAID Caching made the ATTO scores less meaningful in my opinion but I’m posting them here for completeness).
The individual metrics for each drive are posted side-by-side to make it easier to compare
My Gen8 MicroServer ready to pack for the #BestMeetUpEver