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

Learn about the specifications and operating system requirements for the 5904, 5906, and 5908 adapter.

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.

Feature 5904, 5906, and 5908 are all feature codes representing the same PCI-X DDR 1.5 GB cache SAS RAID Adapter. Different feature codes indicate if a blind swap cassette is used and its type:

Feature 5904 indicates no blind swap cassette. The feature is used in enclosures that do not use blind swap cassettes.
Feature 5906 indicates a gen-2.5 blind swap cassette. The feature is used in the 5797 and 5798 enclosures.
Feature 5908 indicates a gen-3 blind swap cassette. This feature is used in the 5790, 5796, and 9117-MMA enclosures.

572F is the CCIN number on the RAID adapter side of the double-wide adapter pair. 575C is the CCIN number on the write-cache adapter.

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. The adapter manages SAS path redundancy and path switching should a SAS failure occur.

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 mini-SAS connector on each card set is used to directly connect the card sets by using a SAS AA cable.

Important: See the SAS RAID controller for AIX or SAS RAID controller for Linux topics for more information and important considerations for multi-initiator and high availability configurations. See also Important partitioning considerations with dual-slot and multi-adapter configurations.

¹ See POWER5 restrictions.

The following figure shows the adapter.

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

Note: Port T3 does not support any device attachment. It is only used in dual controller I/O configurations for adapter to adapter communication.

Specifications

Item

Description

Adapter FRU number

44V5193 (Designed to comply with RoHS requirement.)

Battery FRU number

39J5555 (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. See Serial-attached SCSI cable planning.

Voltage

3.3V

Form factor

Long

Maximum number

See PCI adapter placement in the system unit or expansion unit.

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 2:6 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
Removable media devices are not supported

Operating system or partition requirements

This adapter is supported for the following operating systems:

AIX:
- 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
- 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

This adapter requires the following drivers:

AIX: devices.pci.1410bd02 device driver package
Linux:
- iprutils version 2.4.1 and ipr driver version 2.0.11.6 (or newer) for RHEL4 kernels
- iprutils version 2.4.1 and ipr driver version 2.2.0.2 (or newer) for RHEL5 kernels
- iprutils version 2.4.1 and ipr driver version 2.2.0.2 (or newer) for SLES10 kernels

Note: 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 Link outside information center

Concurrent maintenance procedure

Concurrent maintenance of this 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 both PCI slots when either slot is selected.

POWER5 restrictions

When the feature is used in a POWER5™ based system configuration, the following restrictions apply:

A maximum of three 5886 EXP 12S Expansion drawers can be attached per controller. Cascading is not supported.
IBM i load source capability is not provided.
The optional dual controller I/O configuration is not supported.