Storage Profile & Policies - Set disk arrangement

[itm.i11.team]

Hello,

I am recently trying to do an automatic windows install on a B220 M5 server. The server is equipped with 4 x HDDs (Disk IDs 3 -6) and 2 x SSDs (Disk IDs 1 - 2). The operating system should be installed on the two SSDs and the remaining HDDs should remain as JBODs without any RAID level.

Therefore I created a Disk Group Policy (see screenshot) for the operating system with the SSDs and added a lun based on this Disk Group Policy to a Storage Profile. All the other HDDs are not configured in any way.

The problem is when I boot the server the LUN created from the SSDs is no longer on position 1, instead the numbering of the disks is changed. E.g. an HDD is now on first position and therefore the automatic installation is trying to install the operation system on the HDD instead of the RAID1 SSD LUN.

Is there a way to control this re-ordering of the disks? I would like to have the SSD LUN always on first place.

Regards

 Martin

[Kirk J]

Greetings.

If possible can you send a screen shot of post time of your (I'm assuming you meant C220m5) where the LSI option rom shows the detected drives and virtual drives?

I believe the OS is going to use different drivers to access the pass through/jbod mode vs the megaraid_sas driver module for the VD0 raid1 volume, and windows may just be choosing to enumerate the generic sata/ahci devices 1st.

Does windows even see the VD0 initially when install is starting?

We see customers do similar setups for hadoop and don't believe they have run into the same issue.

Thanks,

Kirk...

[itm.i11.team]

Greetings Kirk,

I have attached a screenshot showing all detected drives during startup. The vd is apparently placed last.

Windows sees the disk as soon as the driver is provided, but with id 5. To make the automatic installation work the system- and C-partition must be written by Windows to the SSD disks, this would require this disk to be in order id 0.

Regards

 Martin

[Kirk J]

Please take a look at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/937251/disk-drive-numbers-may-not-correspond-to-the-sata-channel-numbers-when

While it is referencing sata channels, I believe the basic underlying issue is still the same as your case.

From above linked article:

"The disk-assignment numbers may not necessarily match the corresponding SATA or RAID channel numbers.  
The BIOS may or may not enumerate disks in a specific order. There is no direct relationship between the BIOS order, and the order in which Windows numbers the disks."

What windows server version are you attempting to install?

Thanks,

Kirk...