IBM Support

6 Gb SAS backplane expander PHY issues with large capacity SATA hard drive - IBM Servers

Troubleshooting


Problem

After updating the IBM 6 Gb Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Expander card firmware level to 'ibm_fw_exp_6gb-v2-sas-52d5,' certain hard drives will not be recognized by the RAID controller. The part detail information is listed as follows: IBM 6Gb SAS Expander card part number: replacement part number (Field Replaceable Unit) part number : 69Y4741 Physical 6Gb SAS Expander card part number: 00AE843 or 69Y4788 for iDataPlex dx360 M3 Server, type 6391 00AE844 or 69Y5603 for System x3630 M3, type 7377 and System x3630 M4, type 7158 Affected hard drives: 68Y7717 hard drive, Hitachi Mars-K, 3.5-inch, 7200rpm, 3TB, SATA 6.0Gb/s 68Y7718 hard drive, Hitachi Mars-K, 3.5-inch, 7200rpm, 2TB, SATA 6.0Gb/s (where: RPM = revolution per minute, TB = terabyte, and SATA = Serial Advanced Technology Attachment)

Resolving The Problem

Source

RETAIN tip: H21530

Symptom

Users have reported reoccurring SAS topology messages of loss of SAS link messages, RAID member hard disks being reported as unconfigured bad, and Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) not be recognized during boot.

  • IBM 6 Gb SAS Backplane Expander card part number: 00AE843
  • Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) part number : 69Y4741

The 6Gb SAS Backplane Expander is used in multiple machines:

  • iDataPlex dx360 M3 Server, Type 6391
  • System x3630 M3, Type 7377
  • System x3630 M4, Type 7158

The issue affects all large capacity (1TB,2TB,3TB,4TB,5TB) SATA hard disk drives.

(where SAS = Serial Attached SCSI, RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks, TB = terabyte, and SATA = Serial Advanced Technology Attachment)

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM servers:

  • System x3630 M3, type 7377, any model
  • System x3630 M4, type 7158, any model
  • iDataPlex dx360 M3 Server, type 6391, any model

This tip is not software specific.

This tip is not option specific.

The ibm_fw_exp_6gb-v2-sas-52b5 firmware for the IBM 6Gb Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Expander card is affected.

Solution

This behavior was corrected in IBM 6Gb SAS Expander Card firmware version ibm_fw_exp_6gb-v2-sas-52e5 and later.

The file is available by selecting the appropriate Product Group, type of System, Product name, Product machine type, and Operating system on IBM Support's Fix Central web page, at the following URL:    

Workaround

Not applicable.

Additional information

A 'PHY' setting on the 6 Gb SAS Backplane Expander was found to be impacting the SAS link negatively when large capacity SATA hard disk drives were in use.

The third party 6 Gb SAS Backplane Expander supplier provided a updated firmware revision with corrected PHY settings. The firmware was tested and is available in an update package available on Fix Central.

Document Location

Worldwide

Operating System

System x:Operating system independent / None

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Document Information

Modified date:
30 January 2019

UID

ibm1MIGR-5093355

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