HPE Smart Storage Battery & Smart Array P440ar Controller Technical Specifications

1. HPE Smart Storage Battery (P/N: 878643-001)

The HPE Smart Storage Battery is a centralized backup source that supports multiple HPE Smart Array controllers. It powers the Flash-Backed Write Cache (FBWC) to retain data indefinitely in the event of an unexpected power loss.

Attribute	Specification
Spare Part Number (SPS)	878643-001
Assembly Part Number	815983-001 / 727258-002
Power Output	96 Watts
Battery Type	Lithium-ion Megacell
Cable Length	145 mm (5.7 inches)
Function	Provides backup power for 2GB/4GB FBWC modules to prevent data loss. One battery can support multiple controllers within the server.
Server Compatibility	HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen9, DL380 Gen9, DL560 Gen9, ML350 Gen9, XL170r Gen9, XL190r Gen9

2. HPE Smart Array P440ar Controller Overview

The HPE Smart Array P440ar Controller is a Flexible Smart Array (AROC / Daughter Card form factor) 12 Gb/s SAS RAID controller. It provides enterprise-class storage performance, internal scalability, and data protection without occupying a standard PCIe slot.

Key Features

• Storage Interface: 12 Gb/s SAS, 6 Gb/s SATA (Supports mix-and-match of SAS and SATA drives).

• Cache Module: 2 GiBytes 72-bit wide DDR3-1866 Flash-Backed Write Cache (FBWC) providing up to 14.9 GB/s cache bandwidth.

• Host Interface: PCI Express Gen3 x8 link width.

• Form Factor: Flexible Smart Array (Daughter Card / Type-a inline slot).

• Dual Modes: Supports both hardware RAID mode and raw Host Bus Adapter (HBA) pass-through mode.

Technical Specifications

• Physical Ports: 8 SAS/SATA physical links split across 2 x4 internal mini-SAS HD connectors.

• Physical Drives Supported: Up to 26 physical drives natively (or up to 200 physical drives with an HPE 12G SAS Expander Card).

• Logical Drives Supported: Up to 64 logical drives.

• Maximum Power Required: Approximately 18 W.

• Boot Support: Legacy and UEFI boot operations.

• Advanced Features: HPE SSD Smart Path (accelerates SSD read speeds), HPE SmartCache (optional license), HPE Secure Encryption (optional license).

3. RAID Support & Fault Tolerance

The controller features full hardware-based RAID and comprehensive fault prevention:

• Supported RAID Levels: RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 50, 6, 60, and 10 ADM (Advanced Data Mirroring).

• Fault Prevention Systems:

  • S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) pre-failure detection.

  • Drive Parameter Tracking: Monitors operational metrics to predict drive failures.

  • Dynamic Sector Repairing: Continuously performs background surface scans and automatically remaps bad sectors.

  • Rapid Parity Initialization (RPI): High-performance background initialization of fault-tolerant logical volumes.

4. Online Management Features

• Online Array Expansion (OAE)

• Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)

• Online Logical Drive Extension (OLDE)

• Online RAID Level Migration (ORLM)

• Online Stripe Size Migration (OSSM)

• Online Mirror Split, Recombine, and Rollback

• Predictive Spare Activation (PSA)

5. Software & OS Compatibility

• Microsoft Windows Server / Hyper-V Server

• VMware vSphere ESXi

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)

• Canonical Ubuntu Server