PCI-X DDR 1.5 GB cache SAS RAID Adapter (FC 5904, 5906, 5908; CCIN 572F and 575C)

Overview

The PCI-X DDR 1.5 GB cache SAS RAID Adapter is a SAS disk controller with a maximum of 1.5 GB compressed write cache and a maximum 1.6 GB compressed read cache. Auxiliary write cache and concurrent battery maintenance are provided. The controller is implemented using two physical adapters that are securely connected to form a double-wide adapter. The double-wide adapter requires two adjacent Peripheral Component Interconnect-X (PCI-X) slots. The auxiliary write cache side of the double-wide adapter contains a dual, concurrently maintainable cache battery pack which maintains cache memory on both adapters in the event of an abnormal termination.

When used in a logical partition (LPAR) environment, this double-wide adapter must have both slots of the adapter assigned to the same logical partition. When implementing dynamic LPAR (DLPAR), both slots of the adapter must be managed together.

The adapter provides RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10 for the AIX® and Linux operating systems. Under the IBM® i operating system, mirroring, and data spreading are provided by the operating system, and RAID 5 and RAID 6 are provided by the adapter. ¹

The adapter provides three mini-SAS 4x connectors for the attachment of SAS drives located in 5886 EXP 12S Expansion Drawers. The adapter supports a maximum of five 5886 EXP 12S Expansion Drawers.¹ With proper cabling and configuration, multiple wide ports are used to provide redundant paths to each dual port SAS drive. If a SAS failure occurs, then the adapter manages SAS path redundancy and path switching.

This adapter supports the multi-initiator and high availability configurations. With the optional pairing of adapter sets, an even higher level of protection is provided by using a dual controller I/O configuration¹ to protect against the failure of an entire adapter set. In such a high availability I/O configuration, SAS X cables are used to attach 5586 EXP 12S Expansion Drawers, and the fourth (top) mini-SAS connector on each card set is used to directly connect the card sets by using a SAS AA cable. See Serial attached SCSI cable planning for more information.

¹ See POWER5 restrictions.

The following figure shows the adapter.

Figure 1. PCI-X DDR 1.5GB cache SAS RAID Adapter

Specifications

Item

Description

Adapter FRU number

44V8622 (Adapter only) (Designed to comply with RoHS requirement.)

44V7627 (Adapter in a gen-2.5 blind swap cassette)

42R4008 (Adapter in a gen-3 blind swap cassette)

Battery FRU number

42R3965 or 74Y5665 (Designed to comply with RoHS requirement.)

I/O bus architecture

PCI-X

Slot requirement

Two, long, adjacent PCI-X slots.

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

Long

Maximum number

See PCI adapter placement for machine types 82xx and 91xx.

Attributes

• SAS speed: 3 Gbps
• SAS, SAS Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP) and Serial Management Protocol (SMP) supported
• Single controller supported with SAS y cables (3692, 3693, 3694)
• Dual controller supported with SAS x cables (3661, 3662, 3663) and SAS AA cable (3681, 3682)
• Single controller supports mirrored write cache data with auxiliary cache
• Dual controller supports mirrored-write cache data and mirrored-RAID parity footprints between card sets
• Solid state drives (SSDs) supported
• Removable media devices are not supported

Operating system or partition requirements

• AIX:
  • AIX 5L™ Version 5.3 with the 5300-07 Technology Level and Service Pack 8, or later
  • AIX 5L Version 5.3 with the 5300-08 Technology Level and Service Pack 6, or later
  • AIX 5L Version 5.3 with the 5300-09 Technology Level and Service Pack 2, or later
  • AIX 5L Version 5.3 with the 5300-10 Technology Level, or later
  • AIX 6.1 and Service Pack 8, or later
  • AIX Version 6.1 with the 6100-01 Technology Level and Service Pack 4, or later
  • AIX Version 6.1 with the 6100-02 Technology Level and Service Pack 3, or later
  • AIX Version 6.1 with the 6100-03 Technology Level, or later
• Linux:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4, with update 7, or later
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5, with update 2, or later
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, with service pack 2, or later
• IBM i
  • IBM i V5R4m5 and Resave F, or later
  • IBM i 6.1 and Resave F, or later
  • IBM i 6.1.1 and Resave A, or later, is required for Dual Storage IOA support.

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 .

Concurrent maintenance procedure

Concurrent maintenance of this double-wide adapter is not supported through the Hardware Management Console (HMC). Concurrent maintenance must be done from within the partition operating system. In IBM i, the Hardware Service Manager (HSM) of the system or owning partition will automatically power off or on both PCI slots when either slot is selected. In AIX or Linux, you must manually power off and on each slot separately.

POWER5 restrictions