HP AJ878A - StorageWorks 320 GB Hard Drive Instruction Manual

HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator Driver
1.2.7
Release Notes
Part number: 595174-001
Third edition: November 2009

Legal and notice information
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Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212,
Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S.
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express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional
warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
WARRANTY STATEMENT: To obtain a copy of the warranty for this product, see the warranty information website:
http://www.hp.com/go/storagewarranty
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Printed in the US

Description
This document describes information about the 1.2.7 release of the IO Accelerator driver, including
a list of changes, firmware compatibility, download location, and notes and instructions on upgrading
from a previous version of the driver.
Version 1.2.7
Supersedes 1.2.4
Update recommendation Routine
Languages International English
Prerequisites
IMPORTANT:
As a precaution, HP recommends backing up all data on the IO Accelerator before performing any
device upgrade.
•On the first driver load after an upgrade, the driver initialization will take several minutes. During
this time the drive is rebuilding the metadata to be compatible with the new format.
•The 1.2.7 firmware is not compatible with earlier driver versions. Upgrading the firmware without
updating the driver will cause the IO Accelerator to report an error (in the system log) stating that
“Not all chips answered….”Upgrade your driver to 1.2.7 to resolve this problem.
Product models
The following IO Accelerator models are represented in this document:
•HP StorageWorks 80GB IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class (80GB IO Accelerator)
•HP StorageWorks 160GB IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class (160GB IO Accelerator)
•HP StorageWorks 320GB IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class (320GB IO Accelerator)
HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator Driver 1.2.7 3

Operating systems
The IO Accelerator driver works with many Linux kernels, and has been verified using the operating
systems and kernel versions listed in the following table. Kernels similar to those listed should work
as well.
Table 1 Qualified Linux Kernels
KernelsOS
2.6.9-22.ELsmp
2.6.9_34.ELlargesmp
2.6.9_34.ELsmp
2.6.9-42.ELlargesmp
2.6.9-42.ELsmp
2.6.9-55.ELlargesmp
2.6.9-55.ELsmp
2.6.9-67.ELlargesmp
2.6.9-67.ELsmp
2.6.9_78.0.8.ELlargesmp
2.6.9_78.0.8.ELsmp
2.6.9_78.ELlargesmp
2.6.9_78.ELsmp
2.6.9_89.ELlargesmp
2.6.9_89.ELsmp
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
2.6.18_120.el5
2.6.18_128.el5
2.6.18_128.el5xen
2.6.18_164.el5
2.6.18_164.el5xen
2.6.18_53.el5
2.6.18_53.el5xen
2.6.18_8.el5
2.6.18_8.el5xen
2.6.18_92.1.22.el5
2.6.18_92.1.22.el5xen
2.6.18_92.el5
2.6.18_92.el5xen
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
2.6.16.46-0.12-smp
2.6.16.60-0.21-smp
SLES 10
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KernelsOS
2.6.27.19_5_default
2.6.27.19_5_xen
2.6.27.21_0.1_default
SLES 11
Table 2 Qualified Windows Kernels
Supported OSOS
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions R2
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 - Server Edition
Windows
Compatible Firmware Versions
CAUTION:
This list shows compatible versions, but the latest firmware is highly recommended for all HP
StorageWorks IO Accelerator types.
•Release 1.2.4: firmware revision 17350 (filename: iodrive_17350.fff)
•Release 1.2.7: firmware revision 36867 (filename: iodrive_36867_1.fff)
Release 1.2.7 Change Log
•Updated HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator Manager (Windows), first release for Linux
•Flashback (25th "parity" chip) improvements
•New firmware: 3.0.0/36867
•Support for SLES11
•New fio-win-bugreport command line tool for Windows
•fio-pci-check for Windows
•fio-status and ioManager show when drive is approaching reduced write performance
•Improved error handling during startup
•Improved Linux kernel version matching during driver build
NOTE:
Fixed time-change sensitivity issue that could cause the watchdog timer to fire incorrectly and disable
a drive during operation. This could occur during a Daylight Savings Time change, or any other
forward time change on both Linux and Windows.
Installation instructions
For more information about the download location and installation instructions, please visit the following
links;
HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator Driver 1.2.7 5

HP BladeSystem technical resources (white papers and support documents): http://www.hp.com/
go/bladesystem/documentation
HP BladeSystem components: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/
c-class-components.html
IO Accelerator Documentation: http://www.hp.com/go/bladesystem/mezzanines
HP support: http://www.hp.com/support
Linux-Specific information
Linux MD RAID5 performs poorly
The Linux kernel RAID5 implementation performs poorly at high data rates. This must be fixed in the
Linux kernel and is not controlled by HP. Alternatives include using RAID10, or possibly a third-party
RAID stack. The cause of the issue is believed to be that the RAID5 parity calculation is handled by
a single kernel thread, which doesn’t match the performance of an array of IO Accelerator drives.
Drivers not installed after updating kernel
When the driver is installed for a specific kernel version and the kernel version is changed for any
reason, the IO Accelerator driver RPM must be reinstalled to work with the new kernel version. The
utilities and firmware RPMs do not have to be reinstalled.
Driver may not autoload in some distributions
When using RHEL4 and SLES10, the driver installation package may not properly configure itself to
be automatically loaded in all run level boot sequences. To check, after you have installed the driver,
run the following command at a shell prompt:
$ chkconfig –list | grep iodrive
You should see:
$ iodrive 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
This shows that the driver will load if the server is booted at run levels 1-5. At a minimum, the run
levels at which you would ever use or maintain the IO Accelerator must be enabled. If that’s not the
case, run the following commands at a shell prompt (with root privilege):
$ chkconfig --del iodrive
$ chkconfig --add iodrive
$ chkconfig --list | grep iodrive
You should now see the result shown above. If you need further assistance, contact HP Support http:/
/www.hp.com/support.
IO Accelerator Driver is not SLES11 Certified
Loading the driver on SLES11 requires a work-around because the driver is not certified. This
workaround is implemented by the SLES11 installer. If you are doing a manual installation of the
RPMS, in order to load the driver, one of the following is required:
Add --allow-unsupported to the modprobe line used to load the fio-driver module.
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OR
Add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/iodrive
allow_unsupported_modules 1
Additionally, comment out the following line in /etc/modprobe.d/unsupported-modules so it looks
like:
# allow_unsupported_modules 0
SLES10 mke2fs -t ext3 reports "Invalid block count - /dev/fioa"
Use mkfs.ext3 instead.
udev times out during long attaches
When several IO Accelerators are installed in a single server, or more commonly if several IO
Accelerators are not shut down cleanly, udev will time out before the driver finishes loading, leaving
any filesystems in /etc/fstab unmountable and will send the system into single-user mode. If this
happens, allow the system to come up and all IO Accelerators to finish attaching (check with fiostatus),
then remove the fio-driver module and reboot cleanly. In order to avoid this use the provided
/etc/init.d/iodrive script. See the IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class user guide for details on
using the init script.
NOTE:
LINUX SNMP setup: Changes to the SNMP configuration file are needed for SNMP to work with Linux.
Please refer to IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class user guide for more information.
NOTE:
If using System Management Homepage (SMH), the logical capacity values may show invalid data.
This will be fixed in a future release.
Windows-specific information
Conversion from GPT to Dynamic disk terminates Logical Disk Manager Admin
Service
This issue appears when converting a partition from GPT to Dynamic volume. The exact message is
“The Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service terminated unexpectedly.”Restart the “Virtual Disk”
service. Right-click “My Computer”and select Manage. From the list of service, find the LDM service
and right-click it and select Start.
Hibernation image save unsupported
Using an IO Accelerator for saving a hibernation image is not supported.
HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator Driver 1.2.7 7

Use of IO Accelerators as a swap/paging or hibernation device not supported
Using the IO Accelerator as a paging/swap device or a hibernation target is not currently supported.
While this setup may appear to work, when stressed it may fail.
Windows system failure dump directory unsupported
Using an IO Accelerator as a target for a Windows System Failure dump directory is not supported.
This will be resolved in a future release.
Partition Commander can cause attach and other failures
The Partition Commander tool is currently incompatible with the IO Accelerator product family.
Intermittent errors may occur when using this tool.
NOTE:
If using System Management Homepage (SMH), the logical capacity values may show invalid data.
This will be fixed in a future release.
Windows Upgrade
To upgrade existing cards to 1.2.7 from 1.2.4, refer to the following steps.
1. Ensure hardware is installed and available.
2. Download and copy the HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator 1.2.7 self-extracting package to the
system.
3. If data is on the IO Accelerator drives, backup, then take the drives offline through the Windows
Disk Administrator/Manager.
4. Remove ioManager 1.2.4 software through the Windows Control Panel (uninstall programs).
5. Reboot system. The 1.2.7 installer will prompt user to remove previous versions of software and
reboot prior to installation of 1.2.7.
6. Install the HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator 1.2.7 software. This will also extract the firmware
image used to update the IO Accelerator card.
7. Reboot
NOTE:
HP IO Manager 1.2.7 won't detect the card until the system is rebooted, rendering it unable to
update the firmware prior to rebooting.
8. Use HP IO Manager to flash upgrade the IO Accelerator card's firmware (HP IO Manager 1.2.7
will detect cards with previous 17350 firmware.
8

NOTE:
Firmware revision 36867 is required with driver version 1.2.7. Firmware revision 17350 was
delivered with the previous 1.2.4 software.
9. Once firmware has been upgraded, the user will be prompted to shutdown. Please shutdown.
NOTE:
Changes to IO Accelerator drive firmware will not take effect until a shutdown is complete. One
can re-attach the IO Accelerator drive without rebooting, but new firmware doesn't appear in
the HP IO Manager until a complete power cycle (shutdown) has taken place.
Determining current version
Determining current Linux version
1. From shell prompt, enter the following command to show the current version of the software that
is installed:
rpm -qa | grep iodrive
2. To upgrade the driver, you must uninstall the existing driver, utilities and firmware before installing
the new versions. Use the –Uparameter in the RPM installation command string to automatically
uninstall the old versions as part of the command task.
To upgrade the driver, see IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class user guide for complete information.
NOTE:
Instructions provided with the new code define what you need to do with each release. Make sure
you read the release notes as well as the install instructions and User Guide to ensure no loss of data.
Determining current Windows version
1. Open Device Manager by right-clicking My Computer, and then selecting Properties>Device
Manager.
2. To upgrade the driver, see IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class user guide for more information.
HP StorageWorks IO Accelerator Driver 1.2.7 9

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