I'm looking at some older Dell R330 servers and thinking about adding a PERC H330 card to use some spare SAS drives in RAID0 for testing Hyper-V. I've heard in the past that Dell often restricts the ability to add these cards unless the server was originally ordered with one. With the newer BIOS updates (latest is 2.20), does anyone know if that restriction still applies? Has anyone successfully added a PERC H330 recently?
3 Answers
I disagree with the myth argument. I tried installing a mini H330 on a R330 that came with SATA only, and neither BIOS nor iDRAC recognized it. There’s been chatter in previous threads about how Dell can block RAID functions on servers that weren't originally configured with it. They seem to enforce these limitations pretty strictly after purchase.
From what I know, the whole restriction on adding PERC cards is more of a myth these days, especially for the R330. The documentation actually states that PERC H330 and H730 are supported, with a dedicated slot for these cards. Just make sure you have the right form factor and cabling because if the server was originally set up with basic SATA drives, the appropriate SAS connections might not be in place. Updating the BIOS and iDRAC is always a good step too!
I’ve had my share of issues with this too. It's not just about Dell’s documentation—sometimes the problem is that the server doesn’t have the necessary cabling to recognize the card correctly. When I tried adding a PERC H330, I made sure to get the internal mini version but still ran into issues because my server didn't have the SAS backplane wired properly. Make sure you check that before assuming it's a BIOS lock.
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