HP IO Accelerator Driver and Management Software Version 2.3.10 Release Notes Abstract This document describes details about the 2.3.10 HP IO Accelerator driver release, including significant issues resolved with this release and issues resolved since the 2.2.0 release. This document also covers issues that might arise using this release.
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Contents About this guide ........................................................................................................................... 5 Description ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Download location .................................................................................................................................... 5 System requirements ............................
ESXi 5.0 injected installer allows installation on an IO Accelerator device ............................................ 16 The IO Accelerator driver cannot be installed as part of an ESXi 4.1 installation .................................... 16 HP IO Accelerator Management Tool-specific issues .................................................................................... 16 IO Accelerator Management Tool in Linux enables preallocate (for swap support) in wrong file ...............
About this guide Description This document describes information about the 2.3.10 release of the IO Accelerator driver, including a list of changes, firmware compatibility, download location, and notes. Version: 2.3.10 Update recommendation: Routine Languages: International English CAUTION: IO Accelerator driver Version 2.3.10 is not backward compatible. HP does not support downgrading from Version 2.3.10 to earlier versions.
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 ESX 4.1 Update 2 • VMware ESXi 4.1 Update 2 • 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.
Upgrade notes Supported firmware version HP recommends using the latest firmware version provided with the software release package for all IO Accelerators. For HP IO Accelerator Version 2.3.10, the firmware version is firmware package ioaccelerator_107053.fff. Upgrading devices for IO Accelerator VSL 2.3.10 Depending on the current version of your HP IO Accelerator device, to preserve the internal structure of the device, you might have to perform multiple upgrades.
Change log Version 2.3.10 change log This change log documents the changes made from Version 2.2.2 to 2.3.10, which includes: • Support for ESXi 5.0 • Expanded Linux Kernel support • RHEL 4 is no longer supported • Support for IO requests up to 1MB (up from 128KB) • New utility, fio-sure-erase. For more information, see the Linux or Windows user guide.
Errata Errata overview This section describes issues you might encounter when using the 2.3.10 IO Accelerator driver release. General issues The following issues might occur regardless of which operating system you use. Incorrect reserves indicated in fio-status When an IO Accelerator device is in write-reduced mode (due to diminished reserves), the fio-status utility may erroneously report 100% health reserves.
If you receive this message while running the fio-status utility during driver loading, unload and reload the driver, and then run the fio-status utility after the driver has loaded. fio-status might not display failed devices When an IO Accelerator device fails, occasionally, it does not appear in the fio-status report. If your device has failed, contact HP support (http://www.hp.com/go/assistance). Linux-specific issues The following issues apply only to systems running Linux operating systems.
ext4 in Kernel.org 2.6.33 or earlier might silently corrupt data when discard (trim) is enabled CAUTION: HP does not support the use of ext4 in Kernel.org 2.6.33 or earlier. Ext4 in Kernel.org 2.6.33 or earlier might silently corrupt data when discard is enabled. The ext4 filesystem in the Kernel.org kernel 2.6.33 and earlier contains a bug where the data in a portion of a file might be improperly discarded (set to all 0x00) under some workloads. Use Version 2.6.34 or newer to avoid this issue.
kernel: ------------[ cut here ]-----------kernel: WARNING: at fs/fs-writeback.c:967 __mark_inode_dirty+0x108/0x160() (Tainted: P ---------------- ) . . . [] warn_slowpath_common+0x87/0xc0 [] warn_slowpath_null+0x1a/0x20 . . . This is due to a bug in the 2.6.32 kernel, and the messages can safely be ignored.
Fusion-io Trim service fails to start If the Fusion-io Trim service does not start, the following errors appear in the Windows system log: A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the Fusion-io Trim Service service to connect. The Fusion-io Trim Service service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
a. Open Device Manger. b. Navigate to the Services menu. c. Select Stop on these running services. 4. Reboot the system. 5. After the system has rebooted, navigate to the installation directory of the driver and remove any files that were left over from the previous installation (at a minimum, any leftover .dll files). If you receive an access denied error when attempting to remove these files, be sure you have Administrator privileges. 6. Remove the fio.dll file from the Windows\System32 directory.
IO Accelerator Management Tool in Linux enables preallocate (for swap support) in wrong file The IO Accelerator Management Tool writes the preallocate_memory parameter to the /etc/modprobe.d/fio-driver.conf file, but it should be writing the option to the /etc/modprobe.d/iomemory-vsl.conf file. Preallocate is still enabled properly.
Acronyms and abbreviations DLL dynamic link library GPT GUID partition table GUID globally unique identifier MLC multi-level cell PCIe peripheral component interconnect express RHEL Red Hat Enterprise Linux RPM Red Hat Package Manager SLC single-level cell SLES SUSE Linux Enterprise Server VSL virtual storage layer Acronyms and abbreviations 18
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