Has anyone else dealt with significant slowdowns on Dell's PERC H730p RAID controllers? I'm seeing incredible delays where booting takes up to 45 minutes, and just trying to do anything afterward seems to take forever. In some cases, the storage controller even disappears from Dell OpenManage. I tried a firmware update, which improved things a bit, but the performance still isn't what it used to be. I've encountered this on four different servers with the H730p. I'm curious if anyone else faced similar issues and if the performance improved post-update for them. Also, I'm pondering if the recent Secure Boot Certificates might have something to do with it—especially since I started noticing a related error after a power outage. Any insights would be appreciated!
5 Answers
Honestly, Dell's PERC controllers can be hit or miss—performance wise, they’re not great. I’d try to avoid using RAID if possible, especially with Linux. If you're stuck with RAID, consider that a power outage could mean the controller is busy with a background rebuild or scrub, which significantly slows things down. Once it finishes, things might return to normal, but watch for any indicators of failed drives that might have been 'silently' dropped.
What RAID setup are you running, and what kind of drives? I've got a different controller but hit 4500MBps with a RAID10 ZFS SSD setup. I'm curious because different configurations can really change performance outcomes.
If your battery backup unit (BBU) is dead, that could disable caching, which would slow down everything significantly. If your controller still has a cache, it's essential to check that out.
I’ve had issues with other PERC models like the H430p, and it seems a mix of bad firmware and no caching can contribute to poor performance. If you haven't updated your driver and firmware lately, that’s definitely a good step to take!
Have you checked the OpenManage logs? They might give clues about failing drives. Sometimes, the cache can hide real performance issues, but logs generally indicate if a drive is acting up.
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