HP IO Accelerator Driver and Management Software Version 3.2.3 Release Notes Abstract This document describes details about the 3.2.3 HP IO Accelerator driver release. This document also covers issues that might arise using this release.
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Contents About this guide ........................................................................................................................... 5 Description ............................................................................................................................................... 5 Product naming ......................................................................................................................................... 5 System requirements ..........................
Forced detach sometimes required for Virtual Controller devices .......................................................... 22 IO Accelerator VSL software not loading or attaching devices after install ............................................. 22 Linux-specific issues ................................................................................................................................. 23 Software not installed post kernel update .................................................................
About this guide Description This document describes the following information about the 3.2.3 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.
IMPORTANT: Generation 2 IO accelerators for BladeSystem c-Class are only compatible with Gen8 and later server blades. • 673642-B21: HP 365 GB Multi Level Cell G2 PCIe ioDrive2 for ProLiant Servers • 673644-B21: HP 785 GB Multi Level Cell G2 PCIe ioDrive2 for ProLiant Servers • 673646-B21: HP 1205 GB Multi Level Cell G2 PCIe ioDrive2 for ProLiant Servers • 673648-B21: HP 2410 GB Multi Level Cell G2 PCIe ioDrive2 Duo for ProLiant Servers • 721458-B21: HP 3.
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 requirements for 320 GB IO Accelerator* (Gigabytes) Minimum system RAM requirements for 365 GB IO Accelerator* (Gigabytes) Minimum system RAM requirements for 1.2 TB IO Accelerator* (Gigabytes) 512 11.4 14.5 47.6 Average block size (bytes) Minimum system RAM Minimum system requirements for 785 GB requirements for 1.
IMPORTANT: With Hyper-V, only a 512 B sector size is supported on IO Accelerator devices. For more information on sector sizes on Windows operating systems, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510009). Supported VMware operating systems • VMware ESX 4.0 Update 4, 4.1 Update 2 • VMware ESXi 4.0 Update 4, 4.1 Update 2 • VMware ESXi 5.0 IO Accelerator devices are only compatible with operating systems that are 64-bit x86 architecture.
• HP 785 GB Multi Level Cell G2 PCIe ioDrive2 for ProLiant Servers • HP 1205 GB Multi Level Cell G2 PCIe ioDrive2 for ProLiant Servers • HP 3.
Upgrade notes Firmware version This version of the IO Accelerator driver is compatible with firmware archive version 109322. 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). After February 19, 2013, all IO Accelerators ship with firmware version 7.1.13.
you must follow. Upgrade the HP IO Accelerator VSL software on the system, and upgrade the firmware to the compatible version in the following order: 1.2.4 > 1.2.7 > 2.2.3 > 3.2.x For example, if your device is using the firmware for IO Accelerator VSL version 1.2.7, upgrade to 2.2.3 (both IO Accelerator VSL and compatible firmware) and then continue on the path. For VSL upgrade information for the HP IO Accelerator, see the HP IO Accelerator Release Notes on the HP website (http://www8.hp.
If you are installing new IO Accelerator devices in a system using older devices and firmware, upgrade the older devices to the latest firmware and driver as a best practice.
Change log 3.2.3 change log This change log documents the changes made from 3.2.2 to 3.2.3, which includes the following: • HP-UX is not supported with this release. • Added support for Windows Server 2003. For more information, see "Supported operating systems (on page 8)." • Added support for 3.0 TB devices. For more information, see "Supported devices (on page 9)." • Change to fio-sure-erase so devices maintain current formatting parameters rather than reverting to the default parameters.
Issue: Splitting and merging Virtual Controller configurations without specifying the device would fail if unsupported devices are installed. Resolution: Devices that do not support Virtual Controller configuration are now ignored and the conversion is successful. • Additional memory allocated Issue: When attaching a freshly formatted device, IO Accelerator VSL version 3.2.2 allocated more initial memory than was required. This was more evident on a newly formatted device that was not in use.
Issue: The reported memory in fio-status used by the IO Accelerator VSL version 3.2.2 for each device grew each time a device was reattached. Actual memory used was not affected. Resolution: Reported memory usage now remains as expected every time a device is reattached. • Interrupt affinity not working in the Windows OS Issue: The interrupt affinity did not work in the Windows OS even when the operating system reports that the affinity was set.
• Due to a known issue, Windows Server 2003 is not supported with this release of the IO Accelerator VSL. • Changes to the firmware archive filename and distribution. • o When using the Windows and Solaris operating systems, the firmware archive file is now distributed as a separate file, and no longer embedded within the IO Accelerator VSL installation package.
— fusion-cimprovider o SNMP, including: — fio-SNMP-agent — fio-SNMP-mib These management tools will be released as part of the IO Accelerator software releases. The Windows versions of these tools are part of the Windows IO Accelerator software installer. The versions for all other platforms will be distributed as individual packages along with the IO Accelerator software release. If you have any issues finding these packages, contact HP Customer Support.
Errata Overview This section describes issues you might encounter when using the IO Accelerator driver release. General issues Do not disable CPUs after loading the IO Accelerator VSL driver If you plan to take any CPUs offline (including disabling Hyper-Threading Technology), you should do so before the IO Accelerator VSL driver loads and begins to use the available CPUs. If you disable any CPUs that were being used by the IO Accelerator VSL software, then the software might hang.
operating system logs. For more information on the NAND board temperature thresholds for specific devices, see the HP IO Accelerator Hardware Installation Guide. 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 you use a set of utilities that does not match the IO Accelerator VSL software, you might see an error in the command line or logs such as unhandled ioctl or Error: This version of is not compatible with the running driver. To solve this issue, reinstall the utilities using the package with the correct version number. Utility failed while running fio-bugreport The fio-bugreport utility uses other utilities to create the report.
Forced detach sometimes required for Virtual Controller devices You might need to use the force option (-f) to detach one or more Virtual Controller devices in the following circumstances: • Busy Device: If you attempt to detach a device using fio-detach and it fails with a status of device busy, then you should first try to detach again. If detach fails again, you might need to use the force option.
Linux-specific issues Software not installed post kernel update When the IO Accelerator VSL software is installed for a specific kernel version and the kernel version is changed for any reason, the VSL must be reinstalled to work with the new kernel version. RHEL5 has some processes that minimize the need to reinstall the software after kernel upgrade. Compiler Cache (ccache) causes IO Accelerator VSL software src.
Kernels 2.6.34/35 don't handle switching interrupt types Linux kernels around 2.6.34/35 might have problems processing interrupts if the driver is loaded using one interrupt type, unloaded, and then loaded again using a different interrupt type. The primary symptom is that the IO Accelerator device is unusable and the kernel logs have errors containing doIRQ. For example, the following sequence on an affected system would likely result in errors: 1.
Switching interrupt types with newer kernels might cause errors With newer Linux kernels, switching interrupt types after initial driver load might cause the kernel to report doIRQ errors. As a workaround, reboot your system before loading the driver with the new interrupt type specified. 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.
Using VMDirectPathIO with multiple-device products Some products contain multiple IO Accelerator devices on one PCI adapter, such as the IO Accelerator Duo device. The IO Accelerator VSL does not support splitting the two IO Accelerator devices between two functions or virtual machines. The following scenarios are supported: • Both IO Accelerator devices are used as a VMFS datastore in ESX or ESXi. • Both IO Accelerator devices are passed through (using VMDirectPathIO) to the same virtual machine.
Acronyms and abbreviations CIM common information model DLL dynamic link library MIB management information base MLC multilevel 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 27
VSL virtual storage layer Acronyms and abbreviations 28
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