HP IO Accelerator Driver and Management Software Version 3.1.1 Release Notes Abstract This document describes details about the 3.1.1 HP IO Accelerator driver release. This document also covers issues that might arise using this release.
© Copyright 2010, 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the 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. Confidential computer software.
Contents About this guide ........................................................................................................................... 5 Description ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Product naming ......................................................................................................................................... 5 System requirements ..........................
kdump crashkernel requires additional memory for the IO Accelerator.................................................. 18 VMware-specific issues ............................................................................................................................ 18 Using VMDirectPathIO with multiple-device products .......................................................................... 18 ESXi 5.0 injected installer allows installation on an IO Accelerator device ...................................
About this guide Description This document describes the following information about the 3.1.1 IO Accelerator driver release: • System requirements, including supported operating systems and hardware requirements • Supported IO Accelerator devices • Upgrade notes, including the firmware version required for this release • Changes since the last generally available release • Issues (Errata) that might arise using this release CAUTION: Before upgrading to 3.x.
• 673648-B21: HP 2410GB Multi Level Cell G2 PCIe ioDrive2 Duo for ProLiant Servers About this guide 6
System requirements Hardware requirements IMPORTANT: For complete hardware requirements and installation instructions, see the HP IO Accelerator Hardware Installation Guide. Sufficient system memory (RAM) The amount of RAM the driver requires varies according to the average block size written to the device. Using the average block size in the following table, you can estimate the amount of system memory needed. CAUTION: Some operating systems only support 512 byte sector sizes.
Average block size (bytes) Minimum system RAM Minimum system RAM Minimum system requirements for 785 GB requirements for 1.2 TB IO requirements for 2410 GB IO Accelerator* Accelerator* IO Accelerator* 8.192 2.2 GB 3.4 GB 6.7 GB 4.096 4.2 GB 6.4 GB 12.7 GB 2.048 8.1 GB 12.4 GB 24.7 GB 1.024 15.7 GB 24 GB 48 GB 512 31.2 GB 47.6 GB 95.3 GB * For IO Accelerator use only. Additional RAM is needed for system operating system and application.
• VMware ESXi 5.0 IO Accelerator devices are only compatible with operating systems that are 64-bit x86 architecture. This requirement means the following scenarios are supported: • Using the IO Accelerator device as a VMFS datastore within the hypervisor and then sharing that storage with guest operating systems. Guest operating systems can be 32-bit or 64-bit because they are not directly using the IO Accelerator device. • Using VMDirectPathIO to allow a VM to directly use the IO Accelerator device.
Upgrade notes Firmware version This version of the IO Accelerator driver is compatible with firmware archive version 107004. When this archive file is used, newer IO Accelerator devices, such as the IO Accelerator Gen2 device, are updated to firmware version 107004. Previous devices, such as the IO Accelerator Gen1 device, are updated to firmware version 107006 or 107007 (HP IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class). Upgrading devices for IO Accelerator VSL 3.x.
Overformatting not supported The –o overformat option is not supported in the 3.x.x VSL software. All upgraded HP IO Accelerator devices are formatted to the maximum advertised capacity, regardless of whether the device was overformatted prior to the upgrade. Do not downgrade device firmware New IO Accelerator devices are shipped with recent firmware versions, often the minimum version required for the device. CAUTION: Do not downgrade the IO Accelerator device to an earlier version of the firmware.
Change log 3.1.1 change log This change log documents the changes made from 2.3.1 to 3.1.1, which includes: • Improved performance and longevity • Support for IO Accelerator Gen2 devices. • Added a module parameter that allows Dual IO Accelerator devices to draw more than 25 W from the PCIe slot. You must enable this parameter for compatible slots. For details, see the HP IO Accelerator Hardware Installation Guide and the user guide for your operating system. • More supported operating systems.
Errata Overview This section describes issues you might encounter when using the IO Accelerator driver release. General issues Keep default MSI interrupts for better performance With IO Accelerator version 3.x and later, all IO Accelerator devices changed from using legacy-style interrupts to MSI. This improves performance while decreasing CPU load. If you want to continue using legacy interrupts, set the disable_msi VSL module parameter value to 1.
Proper time on startup If the IO Accelerator device does not boot up with the proper time set on the system, then the software might delay starting, because the driver self-tunes to the difference between the reflected age data and actual age of data. If the time is set backward on a running system, this setting might result in decreased card performance for the lesser of one day or the amount the time is set backward. Proper time is within a few minutes of actual time. Compiler Cache causes driver src.
IO Accelerator Manager displays the wrong device when swapped out When a system is shut down and one device is swapped out for another, the IO Accelerator Manager might display the serial number for the previous device. This incorrect display might also affect the graphing function of the software. To resolve the issue, restart the fio-agent: For Windows operating systems, in the Windows Administrative Tools, navigate to Windows Services, stop the fio-agent, and then start it again.
Linux-specific issues 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 must be reinstalled to work with the new kernel version. RHEL5 has some processes that minimize the need to reinstall the driver after a kernel upgrade. Rare error on driver unload using kernels older than 2.6.24 A bug in Linux kernels prior to 2.6.
$ modprobe iomemory-vsl disable_msi=0 To work around this issue, if you see the error, reboot the system. Also, always load with the same interrupt type selected. To change between interrupt types, reboot the system first.
kdump crashkernel requires additional memory for the IO Accelerator With the IO Accelerator driver installed, kdump might fail to generate a complete dump due to a lack of reserved memory. To ensure that you have enough memory, increase the memory allocated to the crashkernel. The amount of memory required varies, depending on your kernel version and the formatted sector sizes (more RAM is required for 512B sector sizes than for 4K sectors).
Acronyms and abbreviations CIM common information model DLL dynamic link library MIB management information base MLC multi-level cell MSI Message Signaled Interrupt PCIe peripheral component interconnect express RHEL Red Hat Enterprise Linux RPM Red Hat Package Manager SLC single-level cell SLES SUSE Linux Enterprise Server VM Virtual Machine VMFS virtual machine file system Acronyms and abbreviations 19
VSL virtual storage layer Acronyms and abbreviations 20
Documentation feedback HP is committed to providing documentation that meets your needs. To help us improve the documentation, send any errors, suggestions, or comments to Documentation Feedback (mailto:docsfeedback@hp.com). Include the document title and part number, version number, or the URL when submitting your feedback.
