[TriLUG] B320i RAID controller driver

[Matt Flyer via TriLUG]

I have an HP Proliant server that has a B320i RAID controller in it.
There are four 300 GB SATA disks configured as a 1+0 ARRAY that
logically looks like one 300GB disk, which is more than enough storage
capacity for what I use.

I have been using Centos 7 on it, which is as integrated with Python
2.7 as M$ Windows (is) was with Internet Explorer. As it is getting
long in the tooth, I am having severe trouble getting the packages
needed to run current versions of Rails and I have decided to throw in
the towel on Centos 7.

I tried running an online 'update' to Centos 8 and it failed on a
number of packages, mostly Python I believe, so I tried to restored my
backup and decided to punt, and put the system in a messed up state. At
this point - a wipe and install of something more modern is the path
forward.

The problem I am running into is that the driver for the B320i is
proprietary and it looks like HP has built drivers for every damned
raid controller, including really old ones, EXCEPT the B320i.  I do not
see a driver for for this controller for either Red Hat 8 / Centos 8 or
Open Suse 15, which I would be willing to try.

What's odd is that if you do an LSMOD and search for the B320i driver,
which is listed on HP's site as "ksmod-hpvsa" this does not appear
anywhere in the list.  Rather AHCI does, and LSPCI shows that it's
using AHCI as a standard SATA controller. So I am not sure where this
driver embeds itself past install or why it can't see the disks at
install. 

Rather you go through a convoluted install process, where you interrupt
the standard install, run "linux dd" and then are supposed to load a
driver that you get as an ISO from HP (that doesn't exist for RH 8 or
Suse 15).

It is looking like my only viable path forward is to disable the
hardware RAID controller and let the OS have the disks directly.  I
suppose I could use MDADM to create a software array, but this isn't
without it's own issues and additional maintenance.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?  I don't get why they would
fail to provide the driver for this controller but do so for all the
others. Perhaps I can put a different raid controller in there that is
supported?