HPE DL20 Gen11 NS204i-u Enablement Kit (P65410-B21)

HPE OS Boot Devices provide turnkey, resilient boot solutions that separate the operating system from the data storage plane in virtualized environments such as VMware, Linux and Windows. The NS204i family includes models designed for hot-plug universal installation as well as self-contained PCIe cards, each equipped with two 480 GB M.2 NVMe SSDs and hardware RAID 1 mirroring to protect the OS image.

Advantages

The HPE NS204i-u eliminates cables and backplanes by offering a universal hot-plug installation that does not occupy a PCIe slot and automatically creates a RAID 1 volume. The NS204i-p and NS204i-d are pre-configured, plug-and-play PCIe cards requiring no GUI setup; all models use NVMe SSDs to deliver significantly faster read performance compared with legacy SATA boot solutions and provide resilient OS segregation for enterprise servers.

Suitable for

• Enterprise server OS boot drives in virtualized environments (VMware, Linux, Windows)
• Systems requiring hardware RAID 1 mirroring for OS redundancy
• Deployments where cable- and backplane-free installation is preferred
• Environments needing faster OS read performance than SATA-based boot drives

Key specifications

• Form factor: M.2 NVMe SSDs (two 480 GB drives)
• Capacity: 2 × 480 GB (mirrored via RAID 1)
• Interface: NVMe over PCIe (PCIe 3.0 compatible)
• Models: NS204i-u (universal hot-plug), NS204i-p and NS204i-d (pre-configured PCIe cards)
• Function: OS boot device with hardware RAID 1 for OS separation and resilience

How to use

Install the appropriate NS204i model into the supported server slot or universal hot-plug bay following the server vendor instructions. For NS204i-u, insert the device into the hot-plug installation point; it will auto-create a RAID 1 volume. For NS204i-p and NS204i-d, insert the pre-configured PCIe card into an available PCIe slot—no GUI or user setup is required. After installation, configure the server BIOS/UEFI to boot from the NVMe OS boot device and proceed with the operating system installation or imaging process.

Recommendations

Use these HPE NVMe OS boot devices for dedicated OS boot volumes separate from data storage to improve manageability and resilience; ensure firmware and server platform compatibility and follow HPE/HP Enterprise guidelines for RAID and NVMe firmware updates.