PCI-X DDR External Dual – x4 Port SAS Adapter (FC 5900 and 5912; CCIN 572A)

Overview

The Peripheral Component Interconnect-X (PCI-X) DDR External Dual – x4 Port SAS Adapter is a low-profile adapter for high-performance and high-density, serial-attached SCSI (SAS) applications. The adapter provides two mini SAS 4x connectors, which allow the eight physical links to be used in various narrow and wide-port configurations. The adapter is a 64-bit, 3.3 V, bootable SAS adapter that provides RAID 0, 5, 6, and 10 capability. Some RAID level support is operating system dependent. The adapter provides RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 6 and RAID 10 for AIX® and Linux. Under the IBM® i operating system, mirroring and data spreading is provided by the operating system and RAID 5 and RAID 6 is provided by the adapter.

The adapter does not have write cache. (The write performance of RAID level 5 and RAID level 6 may be poor on adapters which do not provide write cache. Consider using an adapter which provides write cache when using RAID level 5 or RAID level 6.)

The adapter can address up to 48 SAS disk drives, although the actual number of drives in a system is subject to the physical placement limitations of the system. Externally attached devices are designed to run at a data rate of 1.5 Gb/s for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) devices, and 3 Gb/s for SAS devices. This card supports RAID and non-RAID DASD, tape, and optical devices. Feature 5912 supports the multi-initiator and high availability configurations in the AIX and Linux operating systems. The IBM i operating system does not support feature 5912 in multi-initiator and high availability configurations.

This adapter does not support solid state drives (SSDs). For more information about SSDs, see the topic Installing and configuring solid state drives.

Specifications

Item

Description

Adapter FRU number

5900: 44V3296^*

5912: 44V4413^*

^* Designed to comply with RoHS requirement.

I/O bus architecture

PCI-X DDR

Slot requirement

One available PCI-X slot

If the adapter is used with the feature 3650 or 3651 cable card, the cable card occupies slot P1-C3 in the 9117-MMA system unit. Features 3650 and 3651 are only supported in the model 9117-MMA.

Cables

SAS device attachment requires specific cables that are provided with the subsystem or device features being attached. Special cabling is required for multi-initiator and high availability configurations. See Serial attached SCSI cable planning.

Voltage

3.3V

Form factor

Short, low-profile

Maximum number

For system-specific adapter placement information, see the PCI adapter placement for machine types 82xx and 91xx or the PCI adapter placement for machine type 94xx topic collections.

Attributes provided

• Two external mini SAS 4x connectors provide attachment of SAS and SATA device enclosures
• SAS Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP), Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol (STP), and Serial Management Protocol (SMP)
• RAID 0, 5, 6, 10

  The write performance of RAID level 5 and RAID level 6 may be poor on adapters which do not provide write cache. Consider using an adapter which provides write cache when using RAID level 5 or RAID level 6.

• Concurrent firmware update
• Removable media device supported (Removable media is not supported in multi-initiator and high availability configurations)
• 440 - 500 Mhz PowerPC® (PPC)
• Support for multi-initiator and high availability configurations (5912)

Operating system or partition requirements

• AIX 5L™ Version 5.3 with the Technology Level 6 and Service Pack 4 (5300-06-04), or later
• AIX 5L Version 5.3 with the 5300-07 Technology Level, or later
• AIX 6.1
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5, with update 1, or later
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, with service pack 1, or later
• IBM i V5R4m5, or later (5912 only)
• IBM i 6.1, or later (5912 only)

This adapter requires the following drivers:

• AIX: devices.pci.1410bd02 device driver package
• Linux:
  • Version 2.0.11.5, or later, for RHEL 4 kernels
  • Version 2.2.0.1, or later, for RHEL 5 kernels
  • Version 2.2.0.1, or later, for SLES 10 kernels
  • Version 2.3.0, or later, for kernel.org kernels (kernel version 2.6.20, or later)

If you are installing a new feature, ensure that you have the software required to support the new feature and that you determine if there are any existing prerequisites. To do this, use the IBM Prerequisite Web site at http://www-912.ibm.com/e_dir/eServerPrereq.nsf .

POWER5 restrictions