Intel RS2BL040 - Raid Controller Installation manual

Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040
Hardware User’s Guide
Intel Order Number: E64391-001

ii Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH INTEL(R)
PRODUCTS. NO LICENSE, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BY ESTOPPEL OR OTHERWISE, TO ANY
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS GRANTED BY THIS DOCUMENT. EXCEPT AS
PROVIDED IN INTEL'S TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE FOR SUCH PRODUCTS, INTEL
ASSUMES NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER, AND INTEL DISCLAIMS ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTY, RELATING TO SALE AND/OR USE OF INTEL PRODUCTS INCLUDING LIABILITY
OR WARRANTIES RELATING TO FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE,
MERCHANTABILITY, OR INFRINGEMENT OF ANY PATENT, COPYRIGHT OR OTHER
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT. Intel products are not intended for use in medical, life saving,
life sustaining applications. Intel may make changes to specifications and product descriptions at
any time, without notice.
Intel is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United
States and other countries.
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Copyright © 2009 by Intel Corporation. Portions Copyright 2005-2009 by LSI Corporation. All rights
reserved.

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide iii
Preface
This is the primary hardware guide for the Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040, for use
with the SAS and SATA disk drives. It contains installation instructions and
specifications.
For details on how to configure the storage adapters, and for an overview of the software
drivers, see the Intel®RAID Software User’s Guide on the Resource CD.
Audience
This document assumes that you have some familiarity with RAID controllers and related
support devices. The people who benefit from this book are:
• Engineers who are designing an Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 for a system.
• Anyone installing an Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 in a RAID system.
Organization
This document includes the following chapters and appendixes:
•Chapter 1 provides a general overview of the Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040.
•Chapter 2 describes the procedures for installing the RAID controller.
•Chapter 3 provides the characteristics and technical specifications for the Intel®
RAID Controller RS2BL040.
•Appendix A explains drive roaming and how to do a drive migration.
Related Publication
The Intel®RAID Software User’s Guide is on the Resource CD that ships with the RAID
controller.

iv Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide v
Table of Contents
Preface ........................................................................................................................iii
Audience ............................................................................................................................... iii
Organization ......................................................................................................................... iii
Related Publication ............................................................................................................... iii
Chapter 1, Overview ................................................................................................... 1
Benefits of SAS ......................................................................................................................1
Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 .........................................................................................2
Protocol Support ............................................................................................................2
Operating System Support ............................................................................................2
Usability .........................................................................................................................3
SAS/SATA Features of the LSISAS2108 Controller ......................................................5
Beep Codes ...................................................................................................................5
Chapter 2, Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware Installation ..................... 7
Requirements ........................................................................................................................7
Installing the RAID Controller ................................................................................................7
Configuring the RAID Controller ..........................................................................................11
Replacing a Controller .........................................................................................................11
Resolving a Configuration Mismatch ...................................................................................11
Chapter 3, Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 Characteristics .............................. 13
Technical Specifications ......................................................................................................14
Array Performance Features ...............................................................................................15
Fault Tolerance ............................................................................................................16
Safety Characteristics ..................................................................................................17
A. Drive Roaming and Drive Migration Install ........................................................ 19
Drive Roaming .....................................................................................................................19
Drive Migration .....................................................................................................................20
B. Installation / Assembly Safety Instructions ....................................................... 21
English .................................................................................................................................23
Deutsch ................................................................................................................................24
Français ...............................................................................................................................25
Español ................................................................................................................................27
Italiano .................................................................................................................................28
C. Regulatory and Certification Information .......................................................... 31
Electromagnetic Compatibility Notices ................................................................................33

vi Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide vii
List of Figures
Figure 1. Changing the bracket................................................................................................. 8
Figure 2. Installing the Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 ........................................................ 8
Figure 3. Connecting Cables between the RAID Controller and Drives/Backplane.................. 9
Figure 4. Card Layout.............................................................................................................. 13

viii Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide 1
List of Tables
Table 1. Jumper Description ...................................................................................................13
Table 2. Technical Specifications ............................................................................................14
Table 3. Array Performance Features .....................................................................................15
Table 4. Fault Tolerance Features ..........................................................................................16
Table 5. Electrical Characteristics ...........................................................................................17

2Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide 1
1Overview
The Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 is a high-performance, intelligent PCI Express*
2.0-compliant SAS/SATA II RAID controller that offers reliability, high performance, and
fault-tolerant disk subsystem management. This is a RAID solution that meets the internal
storage needs of workgroup, department, or enterprise systems to use cost-effective SATA
or high-performance SAS media.
As a second-generation PCI Express* RAID controller, the Intel®RAID Controller
RS2BL040 addresses the growing demand for increased data throughput and scalability
requirements across mid-range and enterprise-class server platforms.
The controller can be connected to up to four drives directly and allows the use of
expanders to connect to additional drives. Note that all expander features will not be
available at product launch. For more information about the use of expanders, see the
ANSI SAS Standard Specification, Version 2.0.
SATA and SAS are serial, point-to-point device interfaces that use simplified cabling,
smaller connectors, lower pin counts, and lower power requirements than parallel SCSI.
The optional Intel® RAID Smart Battery AXXRSBBU7 provides cached data protection
for the RAID controller, even during system failures.
Benefits of SAS
SAS is a serial, point-to-point, enterprise-level device interface that leverages the proven
SCSI protocol set. SAS is a convergence of the advantages of SATA, SCSI, and Fibre
Channel, and is the future mainstay of the enterprise and high-end workstation storage
markets. SAS offers a higher bandwidth per pin than parallel SCSI and improves signal
and data integrity.
The SAS interface uses the proven SCSI command set to ensure reliable data transfers,
while providing the connectivity and flexibility of point-to-point serial data transfers. The
serial transmission of SCSI commands eliminates clock skew challenges. The SAS
interface provides improved performance, simplified cabling, smaller connectors, lower
pin count, and lower power requirements than parallel SCSI.
SAS controllers leverage a common electrical and physical connection interface that is
compatible with Serial ATA technology. The SAS and SATA protocols use a thin, 7-wire
connector instead of the 68-wire SCSI cable or 40-wire ATA cable. The SAS/SATA
connector and cable are easier to manipulate, connect to smaller devices, and do not
inhibit airflow. The point-to-point SATA architecture eliminates difficulties created by the
legacy ATA master-slave architecture while maintaining compatibility with existing ATA
firmware.

2Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide
Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040
The Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 is an intelligent, low-profile RAID adapter with
an integrated LSI SAS2108 RAID-On-Chip chipset, providing both a SAS controller and
RAID engine. With 512-MB RAM built onto the board and four independent ports
supporting 6 Gb/s and 3 Gb/s SAS data transfers using one SFF-8087 mini multi-lane
connectors, this controller supports up to 16 enterprise-class SAS or SATA devices and 64
virtual drives. The PCI Express* connector fits into an x8 or x16 PCI Express* slot
capable of performance up to 5 Gb/s per lane.
The SAS RAID controllers support the SAS protocol as described in the Serial Attached
SCSI Standard, Version 2.0. The controllers also support the Serial ATA II (SATA II)
protocol defined by the Serial ATA Specification, Version 1.0a and the Serial ATA II:
Extension to the Serial ATA Specification, Version 1.1. SATA II is an extension to SATA
1.0a.
In addition, the SAS RAID controllers support the following SATA II features:
•3 Gb/s SATA II
•Staggered spin-up
•Hot plug
•Native command queuing
•Activity and fault indicators for each PHY
•Port selector (for dual-port drives)
Protocol Support
Each port on the SAS controllers supports SAS devices, SATA II devices, or both using
SSP, SMP, STP, and SATA II as follows:
•Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP) to enable communication with other SAS devices.
•SATA II Protocol to enable communication with other SATA II devices.
•Serial Management Protocol (SMP) to share topology management information
with expanders.
•Serial Tunneling Protocol (STP) support for SATA II through expander interfaces.
Operating System Support
•Microsoft Windows Server 2003*, Microsoft Windows Server 2008*, and Windows
Vista*.
•Red Hat* Enterprise Linux 4.0, and 5.0.
•SuSE* Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11.

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide 3
All operating systems supported by the RAID controller may not be supported by your
server board. To verify compatibility, see the Tested Operating System List for your server
board at http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/.
To make sure the RAID controller supports your operating system, refer to the Tested
Hardware and Operating System List for the Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040.
Usability
•The card ships with both a standard and a low-profile bracket.
•Small, thin cabling with up to 6.0 Gb/s serial, point-to-point data transfer rates
•Support for non-disk devices and mixed capacity drives
•Support for intelligent XOR RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60
•Dedicated or global hot spare with auto rebuild if an array drive fails
•User-defined stripe size per drive: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, or 1024 KB
•Advanced Array configuration and Management Utilities provides:
— Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) adds space to existing drive or new drive.
See Appendix A for limitations on OCE and RAID migration.
— Online RAID level migration (upgrade of RAID mode may require OCE).
— Drive migration
— Drive roaming
— No reboot necessary after expansion
— Load Balancing
•Upgradeable Flash ROM interface
•Allows for staggered spin up, hot-plug, and lower power consumption
•User-specified rebuild rate (percent of system resources to use from 0-100%)
Caution: Exceeding 50% rate may cause operating system errors due to waiting for
controller access.
•Background operating mode can be set for Rebuilds, Consistency Checks,
Initialization (auto restarting Consistency Check on redundant volumes), Migration,
OCE, and Patrol Read.
•Allows mixed connections to SAS targets or SATA II targets
Note: Intel recommends that you carefully assess any decision to mix SAS and SATA drives
within the same virtual drive. Although you can mix drives within the same virtual drive,
Intel strongly discourages the practice. However, you should never mix SAS and SATA
drives within the same enclosure.

4Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide
Redundancy and Error Handling
•In-band and out-of-band SES2.
•Enclosure management support.
•Support the internal SAS Sideband signal SFF-8485 (SGPIO) interface.
•Drive coercion (auto-resizing to match existing disks).
•Auto-detection of failed drives with transparent rebuild. There must be disk activity
(I/O to the drive) for a missing drive to be marked as failed.
•Auto-resume on reboot of initialization or rebuild (must be enabled before virtual
disk creation).
•Smart initialization automatically checks consistency of virtual disks if there are five
or more disks in a RAID 5 array, which optimizes performance by enabling read-
modify-write mode. RAID 5 arrays of only three or four drives use Peer Read mode.
•Dirty cache LED plus error reporting for cache write to disk.
•Smart Technology predicts failures of drives and electronic components.
•Patrol Read checks drives and maps bad sectors.
•Commands are retried at least four times.
•Firmware provides best effort to recognize an error and recover if possible.
•Failures are logged from controller and drive firmware, and SMART monitor.
•Failures are logged in NVRAM, viewable from OS Event Log, Intel®RAID Web
Console 2; CIM, LEDs, and via alarm.
•Multiple cache options allow configuration-specific performance optimization:
— Write-back: Faster because it does not wait for the disk but data will be lost if
power is lost.
— Write-through: Usually slower but ensures data is on the disk.
— Read Ahead: Predicts next read will be sequential and buffers this data into the
cache.
— Non-Read Ahead: Always reads from the drive after determining exact location
of each read.
— Adaptive Read Ahead: Reads ahead and caches data only if doing sequential
reads.
— I/O setting: Determines whether read operations check the cache before reading
from disks.
✧Cache I/O: Checks cache first; only reads disk if data is not in the cache.
✧Direct I/O: Reads data directly from disk (not cache).
•Redundancy through:
— Configuration stored in non-volatile RAM and on the drives (COD).
— Hot-swap support.

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide 5
— Optional battery backup for cache memory.
SAS/SATA Features of the LSISAS2108 Controller
•Provides eight independent phys, each supporting 6 Gb/s and 3 Gb/s SAS data
transfers per PHY.
•Scalable interface that supports up to 16 physical devices and 64 virtual drives
through expanders.
•Supports SSP to enable communication with other SAS devices.
•Supports SMP to communicate topology management information.
•Supports single PHY or wide ports consisting of 2, 3, or 4 PHYs within a single
quad port.
•Allows addressing of multiple SATA targets through an expander if using SATA 2.0-
compliant hard disk drives.
•Allows multiple initiators to address a single target (in a fail-over configuration)
through an expander.
Note: All expander features will not be available at launch.
Online Capacity Expansion and RAID Level Migration Rules
•Migration must occur to the same or larger capacity configuration.
•Migration cannot occur if there is more than one virtual disk in an array.
•Migration and OCE cannot be done on Spanned Arrays (RAID 10, 50, 60).
•Migrations supported are RAID 1 to RAID 0, RAID 5 to RAID 0, RAID 6 to RAID
5, and RAID 6 to RAID 0.
•With OCE, migrations supported are RAID 0 to RAID 1, RAID 0 to RAID 5, RAID
5 to RAID 6, RAID 1 to RAID 6, and RAID 1 to RAID 5.
Beep Codes
•Short beep (1 second on, 1 second off): Array has degraded but no data has been
lost.
•Long beep (3 seconds on, 1 second off): Array has failed and data has been lost.
•Short beep (1 second on, 3 seconds off): Using hot spare in rebuild; alarm will
continue during rebuild with a different sound at completion.
To disable the alarm, choose Disable Alarm. To enable the alarm, choose Enable Alarm
To disable the alarm only until the next event or until next power cycle, choose Silence
Alarm.

6Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide 7
2Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040
Hardware Installation
Requirements
•An Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040 with the provided cables
•A host system with an available x8 or x16 PCI-Express* slot
•The Resource CD, which contains drivers and documentation
•SAS or SATA 3.0 hard drives
Note: SATA II is the only type of SATA supported by this RAID Controller.
In addition, Intel Corporation strongly recommends using an uninterruptible power supply
(UPS).
Installing the RAID Controller
To install the RAID Controller, follow these steps:
1. Turn off the power to the system, all drives, enclosures, and system components.
Remove the power cord(s).
2. Remove the server system cover. For instructions, see the server system
documentation.
3. If necessary, change the bracket on the RAID controller to fit the height of the
server system (see Figure 1).

8Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide
Figure 1. Changing the bracket
4. Install the RAID controller into an available server system x8 or x16 PCI-Express*
slot (see Figure 2). To locate an appropriate slot and for instructions on installing an
add-in card, see your server system documentation.
Figure 2. Installing the Intel®RAID Controller RS2BL040
C
C
AF003199
PCI Express* Slot (3.3 V)
AF003200

Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide 9
5. For the four drives (ports 0 - 3), connect one 4-port combined end of an internal
cable to the right connector (see letter “A” in Figure 3). Connect the other end of
the cables to SATA drives or to the ports on a SATA or SAS backplane (see letter
“C” in Figure 3).
To prevent throughput problems:
✧Use the cables provided or use the shortest possible cable.
✧Do not use cables longer than one meter.
✧Decrease the maximum length by one foot if you are using a backplane.
✧Do not use cross-over cables.
✧Only connect to a SATA drive, SAS or SATA backplane, or an expander
device.
✧Route the cables carefully.
✧Check that the controller and cables are all properly attached.
Figure 3. Connecting Cables between the RAID Controller and
Drives/Backplane
C
Ports 0-3
A
AF003201

10 Intel® RAID Controller RS2BL040 Hardware User’s Guide
6. Install the server system cover and connect the power cords. For instructions, see
your server system documentation.