PCI-X DDR External Dual – x4 Port SAS Adapter (FC 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.

Specifications

Item

Description

Adapter FRU number

5912: 44V4413^*

^* Designed to comply with RoHS requirement.

I/O bus architecture

PCI-X DDR

Slot requirement

One available PCI-X slot

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

Short, low-profile

Maximum number

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

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
• , or later
• 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
• IBM i 6.1, or later

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)

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.