[TriLUG] Server Distro on HP with SAS Drives

[Matt Flyer via TriLUG]

I have an HP Proliant machine with SAS drives that I would like to bring
online as an updated server.  After giving it a little thought, I decided
to put CentOS on it, though I am not married to that distribution.

I downloaded the ISO (note, the minimal ISO would not run, apparently due
to missing drivers that are in the standard DVD version), verified the SHA
SUM and verified the GPG signature on the sums (Thank's Mint).  The system
would boot and the installation manager started.

All appeared to be going well, until I realized it doesn't see any disks
in the machine.  As I mentioned in the subject title, the machine has SAS
drives.  It looks like Red Hat has removed a lot of functionality or even
the drivers for the HP Smart Array Controller and as such it doesn't see
any drives
(http://vessokolev.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-to-install-centos-7-on-hp-proliant.html)

The blog I linked to has instructions for what look like extracting the
driver from an older Centos system, hacking the ISO image, and using it to
install the newer version.

My question(s) is (are): has anyone run into this and do you have a better
solution or is there a distribution that does work with SAS drives?