Mixing SATA and SSD in Same B-Series UCS Server

Here are the basic steps I took to configure 2 local ATA disks in a RAID1 and 2 local SSD disks stand-alone on a single B440-M2:

Since we have 2 SATA drives and 2 SSD drives in the same server, we need to make sure NOT to configure a Local Disk Configuration Policy.  This one through me for a bit, since this is the preferred way to handle RAID configuration when the same disk-types are present.  If you have varying disk types, you need to manually configure your disks.

Create a basic boot policy:

Once the service profile is deployed, and server is powered on, pull up KVM console.  When prompted for the LSI RAID ui, press Ctrl+H

This will bring you to the MegaRAID BIOS Config Utility.  Follow these steps to configure your RAID:

1. Click Configuration Wizard
2. Add Configuration
3. Yes to clear data
4. Method – Manual Configuration
5. Drive Group Definition – Choose the 2 drives you want in a RAID.
6. Drive Group Definition – Add To Array
7. Drive Group Definition – Accept DG
8. Next
9. Add Array to Span
10. Virtual Drive – Configure as RAID1
11. Virtual Drive – Configure size (GB)
12. Next
13. Set Boot Drive / Go
14. Now exit and restart to complete

You should now be ready to move on with mounting your virtual media and installing OS of your choice on your brand new RAID1, while havinb 2 additional SSD disks present for general use.

References:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/c/sw/raid/configuration/guide/RAID_GUIDE/Cisco_UCSM.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/3rd-party/lsi/erswug/guide/48712-00B_EmbMRAID_SWUG.pdf