PCI Express x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS Adapter and Cable Card (FC 5909; CCIN 57B9)

Overview

The PCI Express x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS Adapter and Cable Card is an x8 PCI Express (PCIe) SAS adapter combined with a cable card in a single cassette assembly. This feature provides an optimized 3/3 split storage device backplane solution within a single PCIe slot for the model 9117-MMA system unit. With this feature, three of the six internal serial-attached SCSI (SAS) disk slots (4, 5, and 6) in the system unit enclosure are controlled by the SAS adapter contained in this feature.

The single cassette assembly goes in slot P1-C3 in the model 9117-MMA system unit. The feature is not supported in any other models.

There are three connectors on the tailstock of this single cassette assembly. The top connector ( C  in Figure 1.) is the cable card link to the three internal SAS disk slots in the system unit. The middle connector is covered with a label and is not used. The bottom connector ( D  in Figure 1.) is the SAS adapter.

An external AI-cable ( B  in Figure 2) connects the top connector with the bottom connector, thereby connecting the three internal SAS disk slots to the SAS adapter. Both the top and bottom connectors are mini-SAS 4x ports.

The SAS adapter contained in this feature is a 64-bit, bootable SAS adapter providing RAID 0, 5, 6, and 10 capability, but with no write cache.

Figure 1 shows the PCI Express x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS Adapter and Cable Card in a cassette with the cassette cover removed to show an internal view of the feature.

Figure 1. PCI Express x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS Adapter and Cable Card in a cassette

 A 

Cable card

 B 

SAS adapter

 C 

4x SAS port provides connection to the internal SAS disk slots

 D 

4x SAS port for the SAS adapter

Figure 2 shows a back view of model 9117-MMA with feature 5909 installed and cabled.

Figure 2. Back view of system unit with feature 5909 installed and cabled

 A 

Cassette containing feature 5909

 B 

SAS 4x AI-cable.

Specifications

Item

Description

Adapter FRU number

44V4813 (Designed to comply with RoHS requirement.)

I/O bus architecture

PCIe x8

Slot requirement

PCIe slot P1-C3 in a model 9117-MMA system unit

Cables

SAS 4x AI-cable:

• FC 3679
• FRU number 44V4041

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.

Maximum number

One per system unit enclosure.

This feature is only supported in the P1-C3 slot in the model 9117-MMA system unit.

Attributes provided

• One external 4x SAS port on the PCIe SAS adapter provides attachment to the internal SAS disk slots using an external AI-cable attached to the combined cable card.
• SAS Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP), Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol (STP) and Serial Management Protocol (SMP)
• RAID 0, 5, 6, 10
• Concurrent Firmware Update
• 440 - 500 Mhz PowerPC (PPC)
• Optimized for SAS disk configurations that use dual paths through dual expanders for redundancy and reliability.

Operating system or partition requirements

• AIX® Version 6.1 with the 6100-01 Technology Level, or later
• AIX 5L™ Version 5.3 with the 5300-08 Technology Level
• 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

This adapter requires the following drivers:

• AIX: devices.pciex.14103903 device driver package
• Linux:
  • iprutils version 2.2.8 and ipr driver version 2.0.11.6 (or newer) for RHEL4 kernels
  • iprutils version 2.2.8 and ipr driver version 2.2.0.2 (or newer) for RHEL5 kernels
  • iprutils version 2.2.8 and ipr driver version 2.2.0.2 (or newer) for SLES10 kernels

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 .