IBM 911x-5709 - Dual Channel SCSI RAID Enablement Card - System > 7029, 9111, 9113, 9114, 9117, 9124, 9131, 9133 - FRU > 39J0148, 39J0149, 97P2823, 97P3158, 97P6308 - Feature > IBM 5709

(#5709) Dual Channel SCSI RAID Enablement Card

The Dual Channel SCSI RAID Enablement Card (#5709) is a bootable high performance SCSI RAID Enablement feature providing RAID 0, 5, or 10 capability to select pSeries systems with the appropriate supporting integrated SCSI adapter and internal multiple disk drives or packs of drives.

To increase the data writing performance, a 40 MByte non-volatile fast-write cache is provided as a resident part of this feature. The 40 MByte fast-write cache can provide an improvement in data throughput and response time during certain sequence write operations compared to SCSI RAID adapters without the fast-write cache. The response time and data transfer improvement will vary depending upon the data block sizes, the percentage of sequential writes, machine type/model, and application parameters.

When an array configuration is selected with the RAID Manager, the disk drives being designated as part of the array are required to be formatted to 522 byte sectors. 522 byte sectors provide additional CRC error checking for improved data integrity. A menu option is provided in the AIX supporting software which will reformat these disk drives prior to their usage in an array. Conversely, when a disk drive is removed from an array, a similar menu option is also provided to re-format them back to 512 byte sectors.

Note: Some disk drives require that their microcode be updated to the latest level before being formatted to 522 Byte Sectors. Also, there are some disk drives which do not support being formatted to 522 Byte Sectors. The PCI-X SCSI Disk Array Manager will inform the user of these known situations when they exist.

Limitations:

• Even though the supporting integrated adapter with the Dual Channel SCSI RAID Enablement Card has ports that run at ultra320 SCSI speeds (up to 320 MBytes/s), the internally attached disk drives will run at a maximum SCSI bus data rate specified by that supporting system disk backplane.
• Disk drives internal to the pSeries system shipped prior to September 1, 2003 require a disk drive microcode update to run at Ultra320 speed.
• Attributes provided: Internal disk drives to be configured as an array.
• Attributes required: Systems with supporting integrated SCSI adapter.

Option Part Numbers

• 39J0148
• 39J0149
• 97P2823
• 97P3158
• 97P6308

Option Model Support

• 7029-5709
• 9111-5709
• 9113-5709
• 9114-5709
• 9117-5709
• 9124-5709
• 9131-5709
• 9133-5709

 Option Guide

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