ServeRAID BR10i SAS Controller BIOS and firmware v2.66 (DOS) - IBM System x iDataPlex dx340, dx360

Download Description

• New IBM xSeries firmware and device driver file naming convention

Severity: Suggested

Supported Adapters: IBM ServeRAID BR10i SAS Controller (44E8689)

Note: This change history applies to all BIOS and firmware for the IBM and LSI Basic or Integrated RAID SAS controllers. Not all levels were released for all controllers.

Change history

Version 2.66 - Suggested

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.26.00
• Firmware Version 1.27.86

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where Solid State Drives (SSDs) were not seen after a link reset.
• Fixed an issue where direct attached SATA drives were not reported missing after they were removed. This could result in degraded or failed volumes being reported as healthy.

Version 2.65 - Suggested

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.26.00
• Firmware Version 1.27.85

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue introduced by new functionality in package 2.50. The issue would cause a dual attached device to be hidden from both the direct connection and the expander connection.
• Changed the behavior during drive quiescing/un-quiescing to prevent the drive metadata from being uneccessarily updated.
• Fixed an issue where drives might go offline during a firmware update, due to I/O timeouts caused by the length of time needed to update the firmware.

Version 2.63 - Suggested

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.26.00
• Firmware Version 1.27.83

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where volumes can become inactive due to the metadata on the drives getting out of synch with NVSRAM.

Version 2.62 - Suggested

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.26.00
• Firmware Version 1.27.82

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where, on certain drives, it was not possible to create a RAID 0.
• Fixed an issue which could cause drive ID0 to go offline.
• Fixed an issue with SSD hot spares being reported as Orphaned.
• Fixed an issue where hot spares could not be created when the first physical disk of a roaming IME volume is missing.
• Fixed a memory leak which could occur in verification of hot spare.
• Fixed several issues involving creating a volume or hot spare immediately after deleting a volume or hot spare.
• Fixed various issues with hot spare reporting.
• Fixed an issue where, in a multi-path environment under heavy I/O, an open timeout can cause Linux file systems to become read-only.
• Fixed an issue where drives may go offline during a firmware flash under Windows.
• Fixed an issue that caused a 0x7600 fault while running heavy I/O to expander attached disks.
• Fixed an issue where, when a driver at a certain volume ID is roamed, the volume ID would change on the next reboot.
• Fixed an issue which caused a 0x266D fault on reinsertion of a hotspare.
• Fixed an issue where a volume cannot be deleted due to foreign metadata from a new drive.
• Fixed an issue where a 0x8055 fault could occur upon insertion of drives with deleted metadata.
• Fixed a rare issue where drives could go missing under a heavy load.
• Fixed an issue where a 0x800F fault may be seen at startup on large topologies.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a 0x0B83 fault when a SATA drive failed to initialize.
• Fixed an issue where the LED of a critical drive would revert to the pattern for an optimal drive before the drive was truly optimal again.
• Fixed an issue where a resync would resume, rather than restart, when a primary drive was removed and re-inserted.
• Fixed an issue that could result in 0x6001 faults while running I/O.
• Removed some extraneous error messages, which were triggered by reboots or firmware flashes, from the firmware log.
• Fixed an issue which cause a 0x266D fault during volume creation.

Functionality:

• Added support for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) based systems.
• Enhanced support for SSDs (Solid State Drives).
• Implemented support for single drive RAID 0.
• Added a new volume status 'Sync Pending' for a volume that could be resynching, but is waiting for the first volume to complete resync.
• Added ability to remove an orphaned hot spare when its associated, missing, volume is deleted.
• Implemented some LED blink pattern changes to account for new hardware.
• Added the ability to enable/disable data scrubbing on SSDs.
• Enabled functionality to update drive firmware on disks in a degraded volume (the update must be done via the IBM Online SAS/SATA HDD Update Program, which must also contain a fix to enable this function).
• Initial release for: IBM 3Gb SAS HBA v2

Version 2.51 - Suggested

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.22.00
• Firmware Version 1.26.84

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue which could cause the operating system's file system to become read only in a multi-path environment.
• For the 1064 option for System x3200 M2, x3250 M2, or x3350, fixed an issue where the amber LED would not light up on a defunct drive.

Version 2.50 - Critical update

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.22.00
  
• Firmware Version 1.26.81

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue which slightly degraded performance in a Large Drive Count (LDC) configuration.
  
• Fixed an issue where SATA drives may fail when alternate paths are removed and reinserted in a multipath configuration.
  
• Fixed a condition which caused a 0x1904/0x1903 fault when issuing a TARGET RESET to certain SATA drives.
  
• Fixed an issue where a 0x0800 fault occurs when an inactive or non-optimal volume is deleted.
  
• Changed a resource allocation so that topology and other discovery related events aren't affected when other resources are heavily stressed.
  
• Fixed an issue where, if a volume is removed, then reinserted, into a SAS topology, the volume becomes inaccessible.
  
• Fixed an issue where discovery appears to hang due to multiple Expander Removed events sent for a single expander.
  
• Fixed an which causes an OS not to boot if one of the hard disks in the boot volume is removed. An error similar to "Adapter LSI RAID 0/1 SAS 4P (0) was 1: Disk (0) missing after reboot".
  
• Fixed an issue where continuous 'device added' events would be sent during discovery when a controller is attached to a topology with more end devices than are supported.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause I/O timeouts or 0x0900/0x1600 faults with SATA drives under heavy I/O load during any memory deallocation.
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple WRITE BUFFER commands may cause a 0x4202 fault.
  
• Fixed an issue where a 0x1904/0x1903 fault may be seen when a duplicate I/O results in a double completion.
  
• Prevented task management timeouts which occurred when the SATA engine was involved with multiple error handling.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Initiator Command queue to become corrupt, resulting in a 0x6001 fault.
  
• Fixed an issue where some error information was lost during Record Not Found media errors.
  
• Fixed an issue with the reporting/retrieval of some LDC statistics.
  
• Fixed an issue which may cause firmware initialization failure when many (more than 50) SATA targets are attached.
  
• Fixed an issue which, in rare cases, could cause a 0x266D fault.
  
• Fixed an issue which could cause a 0x1904 fault when issuing task management requests during heavy IO.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused a break of the MPI spec in a scenario where an end device fails SATA initialization or an expander is out of routing table entries.
  
• Fixed an issue where a virtual PHY is counted multiple times, resulting in the same Bus/Target ID being assigned to two different devices.
  
• Fixed a stack overflow issue which could result as a 0x0900 fault or a fault code 11h during system initialization.
  
• Enabled modification of Write Cache settings for RAID 0 volumes.
  
• Fixed an issue which caused an "Insufficient Resources" response for an MPT RAID Passthrough command.
  
• Fixed an issue where SMP requests are sent through the SMP passthrough, a 0x4203 fault occurs.
  
• Fixed an issue where drives with SMART errors are not detected as volume members.
  
• Prevented a false "Device Not Responding" event during discovery under heavy I/O.
  
• Fixed an issue where an Activity LED would erroneously blink when a raw hard drive was added to a previously occupied slot.
  
• Fixed an issue which could result in media errors at 51% rebuild point when a hot spare is present.
  
• Fixed I/O timeouts and/or invalid SAS Expander Page #0 content which could occur if a bad link caused rapid linkup/linkdown states on a drive.
  
• Fixed an issue which could result in a 0xBADn fault (where n is the PHY number) after a HARD RESET primitive is received.
  
• Corrected an issue where the swap out status of a drive is always set to 0, rather than to a meaningful value.
  
• Fixed an issue where, if a card enters fail-safe mode due to unreadable or unreachable settings, a fault 0x0700 was seen and the card would never enter READY state.
  
• Fixed an issue where a hotspare which was created through the BIOS would not be correctly reported until after a reboot.
  
• Corrected an issue where media errors would cause unnecessary device resets.
  
• Fixed an issue where, if a disk is hot swapped with an incompatible disk, the new disk would incorrectly be assigned the volume ID as its target ID.
  
• Prevented multiple paths from being returned unless multipathing is specifically enabled in NVDATA.
  
• Fixed an issue which results in a 0x6014 fault during discovery in complex topologies.
  
• Corrected an issue where pulling a drive in a volume would caused a 0x801F fault.
  
• Fixed an issue where a 0x6002 fault is encountered in LDC topologies.
  
• Ensured the MPI_EVENT_IR2_RC_PD_REMOVED event is properly reported when a foreign disk is removed.
  
• Fixed an issue which could result in a 0x0800 fault under heavy I/O.
  
• Corrected an issue which results in 0x4E01 fault when processing multiple simultaneous NCQ errors.
  
• Fixed an issue where, if four or more drives are configured as any mix of volumes or hot spares, when you delete the volume, the associated hot spare(s) are correctly deleted, but the physical drives don't reappear in BIOS until after a reboot.
  
• Fixed an issue where, if the same LUN is issued two active resets, the second reset could be completed before the first reset.
  
• Fixed an issue which causes SATA initialization failure if a WRITE command is processed concurrently with a RESET command. The volume would then change to a FAILED state.
  
• Ensured that metadata size is automatically detected by the firmware.
  
• Fixed an issue where the BIOS stops responding if a rebuilding hard drive is removed.
  
• Fixed an issue where 0x7600 faults were encountered when running heavy I/O to cascaded x12 expanders.
  
• Fixed an issue where, with a 1078 chip, a 0x266D fault may occur when hot spare is reinserted.
  
• Corrected an issue where SAS or SATA drives may be reported missing after a target reset to an end device.
  
• Fixed an issue where SATA data frames received without a valid EOF delimiter can cause the following frames to be overwritten. This can result in incorrect data.
  
• Fixed an issue where a hardware generated BREAK can cause the following frames to be overwritten due to credit issues. This can result in incorrect data.
  
• Fixed an issue where, if the drive at the volume ID slot is roamed, the volume ID might change on the next reboot.
  

Functionality:

• Implemented various changes to the LED blink pattern for SGPIO.
  
• New functionality to ensure that, if a dual-ported device is connected via both direct and expander attached connections, only the direct connection is hidden when the HideNonzeroAttachedPhyIdentifiers bit is set.
  

Version 2.42 - Suggested

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.22.00
  
• Firmware Version 1.25.82

Fixes:

• Reworked the firmware download function into an asynchronous operation to allow I/O to continue during the process.
  
• Fixed an issue where a direct-attached SEP device will not be assigned an ID or handle which will prevent communication with the device.
  
• Fixed an issue where a direct-attached SEP will be incorrectly assigned TargetID 0.

Version 2.41

Contains:

• BIOS Version 6.22.00
• Firmware Version 1.25.81

Fixes:

• Added support for Dual Direct Attached I2C SEP to 1064e and 1068e chips using an I2C Multiplexer.

Please see the CHANGE HISTORY file for complete details.