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IBM i Functional Enhancements Summary
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For more information about IBM i Technology Refreshes and Resaves, see IBM i Technology Refreshes and Resaves.
See IBM i Functional Enhancements Details for more announcement details about each item listed in these tables:
| IBM i Functional Enhancements | IBM i 7.6 | IBM i 7.5 | IBM i 7.4 |
| Enhancements from July 2026 | |||
| Virtual Ethernet Multiqueue support | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 8 | - |
| Configurable Secure Access for Linux Remote Consoles | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 8 | PTF MJ09039 |
| Enhancements from November 2025 | |||
| Fibre Channel Multipath Automatic Path Disable | Tech Refresh 1 | - | - |
| Improve high volume large read performance on VIOS-hosted virtual SCSI disks | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | - |
| Improve diagnostic abilities for Fibre Channel adapter optical transceivers | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | - |
| Enhancements from July 2025 | |||
| Security: IBM i Secure Boot (Power11) | Power11 GA PTF Group | - | - |
| IBM i NVMe Hot Spare (Power11 only) | Power11 GA PTF Group | Tech Refresh 6 | - |
| Base Infrastructure support for zlibNX acceleration in PASE (Power11 only) | Power11 GA PTF Group | Tech Refresh 6 | - |
| D-mode IPL performance enhancement for IBM i LIC installs | Power11 GA PTF Group | Tech Refresh 6 | - |
| IBM i Tape Library Virtualization support for 3584 tape libraries | Power11 GA PTF Group | - | - |
| Base Infrastructure support for the Partition Mirroring migration method within IBM i Migrate While Active | - | - | Tech Refresh 12 |
| Enhancements from April 2025 | |||
| Encryption for ASP 1 to protect user data | Base | - | - |
| Use of PKS for iSCSI CHAP authorization credentials | Base | - | - |
| Ethernet Link Aggregation - Dynamically add and remove member ports | Base | - | - |
| SST and DST interfaces for NVMe Password Protection Policy | Base | - | - |
| NVMe Performance Improvement | Base | - | - |
| Items in the next table were before the IBM i 7.6 General Availability date of 18 April 2025, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.6. |
| IBM i Functional Enhancements | IBM i 7.5 | IBM i 7.4 | IBM i 7.3 |
| Enhancements from May 2023 | |||
| Direct attach for 8 Gb Tape for servers with Power10 technology | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 8 | - |
| Concurrent removal of FC devices | Tech Refresh 2 | - | - |
| Enhancements from December 2022 | |||
| Manual disable of a disk path | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | - |
| Password protection for data on NVMe devices | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | - |
| Items in the next table were before the IBM i 7.5 General Availability date of 10 May 2022, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.5. |
| IBM i Functional Enhancements | IBM i 7.4 | IBM i 7.3 | IBM i 7.2 |
| Enhancements from November 2020 | |||
| IPL Time Improvement | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 9 | - |
| Improved Performance for Duplicating Tape Media | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 9 | PTF SI74083 |
| Enhancements from November 2019 | |||
| Enhanced Unmap Support for IBM Spectrum Virtualize | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | - |
| Dynamic LUN expansion with the IBM DS8900 | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 7 | - |
| Enhancements from May and June 2019 | |||
| OS Limits increased for Max Disk Arms and LUN Size | Base | - | - |
| OS Limits increased for Multi-core and Multi-thread | Base | - | - |
| Items in the next table were before the IBM i 7.4 General Availability date of June 21, 2019, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.4. |
| IBM i Functional Enhancements | IBM i 7.3 | IBM i 7.2 | |
| Enhancements from Sep 2018 | |||
| Unmap for IBM Spectrum Virtualize configurations | Tech Refresh 5 | Tech Refresh 9 | |
| SAN Multipath Support for Tape Drives - Extended to more tape drives | Tech Refresh 5 | Tech Refresh 9 | |
| Enhancements from Mar 2018 | |||
| Unmap for IBM FlashSystems configurations | Tech Refresh 4 | Tech Refresh 8 | |
| Enhancements from Oct 2017 | |||
| Increase in max LUNs per port for Fibre Channel configurations | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | |
| IBM i system backup saves LAN console configuration as part of the LIC data | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | |
| Automatic sorting of volumes in optical container media | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | |
| Maximum disk and load source size increase to 4 TB for 4160-byte sectors | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | |
| No maximum for USB flash drive capacity | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | |
| Improved debug for storage IOAs | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | |
| Improved performance for some IBM DS8000 storage configurations | Tech Refresh 3 | Tech Refresh 7 | |
| Enhancements from March 2017 | |||
| Serviceability improvements for severe errors | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 6 | |
| Flash drive no longer requires a physical pull or push when exported | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 6 | |
| Default setting for 4096 sector disk has been changed | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 6 | |
| DS8000 HyperSwap disks no longer require resume of normal replication before IPLing | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 6 | |
| Enhancements from Nov 2016 | |||
| Containers make USB Flash and RDX look like a stack of DVDs | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 5 | |
| New format for tape volume statistics | Tech Refresh 1 | -- | |
| Identifying a partition with a UUID | Tech Refresh 1 | Tech Refresh 5 | |
| Enhancements from May 2016 | |||
| SSD Fuel Gauge | Base | Tech Refresh 4 | |
| Items in the next table were before the IBM i 7.3 General Availability date of April 15, 2016, but they are all supported by the base release of IBM i 7.3. |
| IBM i Functional Enhancements | IBM i 7.2 | IBM i 7.1 | |
| Enhancements from Nov 2015 | |||
| DUPOPT of IPL-capable media enhancement | Tech Refresh 3 | -- | |
| SAN Multipath Support for Tape - Automatic Fail-over | Tech Refresh 3 | -- | |
| HDD RAID array start time reduced | Tech Refresh 3 | -- | |
| IBM i supports SVC/Storwize HyperSwap Volumes | Tech Refresh 3 | -- | |
| Enhancements from May 2015 | |||
| SAN Multipath Support for Tape Drives | Tech Refresh 2 | -- | |
| SAN Adapter Availability Improvement | Tech Refresh 2 | Tech Refresh 10 | |
| Enhancements from Nov 2014 | |||
| Decreased Minimum Load source Size | Tech Refresh 1 | -- | |
| Enhancements from May 2014 | |||
| IBM i support for "WAN over LAN" configurations | Base | -- | |
| Increase in maximum file size for IFS QOPT files | Base | -- | |
| Improved status display for aggregated Ethernet ports | Base | -- | |
| Usability enhancements for vary o of tape and tape library devices | Base | -- | |
| Items in the next table were before the IBM i 7.2 General Availability date of May 2, 2014, but they are all supported with the base release of IBM i 7.2. |
| IBM i Functional Enhancements | IBM i 7.1 | IBM i 6.1 (with 6.1.1 Machine Code) |
|---|---|---|
| November 2013 -- LACP for Aggregate Ethernet Line Descriptions | Tech Refresh 7 | - |
| June 2013 -- Variable LUN sizes for DS8870 | Tech Refresh 6 | Resave RS-611-K |
| February 2013 -- Ethernet Link Aggregation Enhancements -- Performance Improvement to LIC PTF Apply | Tech Refresh 6 Tech Refresh 6 | - Resave RS-611-K |
| October and November 2012 -- Enhanced administrative SMT controls for POWER7 -- EB33 Dynamic Platform Optimizer -- Large Tape Library Enhancement | Tech Refresh 5 Tech Refresh 5 Tech Refresh 5 | - Resave RS-611-J - |
| May 2012 -- Performance improvement for Record Locks | Tech Refresh 4 | - |
| October 2011 -- Ethernet Link Aggregation -- Thin Provisioning for DS8000 and VIOS Shared Storage Pools -- Bus level statistics for 12x loops | Tech Refresh 3 Tech Refresh 3 Tech Refresh 3 | - - PTF SI43498 |
| May 2011 -- More advanced multipath algorithms -- Enablement for IBM Disk Sanitizer PRPQ to include SSDs | Tech Refresh 2 Tech Refresh 2 | - - |
| September 2010 -- Installation of new partitions via network -- CEC node level mirroring -- SSD performance enhancement | Tech Refresh 1 Tech Refresh 1 Tech Refresh 1 | APAR II14310 - |
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Modified date:
10 July 2026
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