How to enable Hardware RAID on Sun Fire[TM] T1000/T2000 Servers

Asset ID:	1-71-1012950.1
Update Date:	2012-02-23
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1012950.1 : How to enable Hardware RAID on Sun Fire[TM] T1000/T2000 Servers

Applies to:

Sun Fire T2000 Server
Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 Server
All Platforms

Goal

This document describes the supported hardware RAID configurations on the Sun Fire [TM] T1000/T2000 and the required firmware and patch levels that need to be installed on the system before the user creates RAID volumes. Also provided is a summary of the RAID operations and commands.

***Checked for relevance on 22-02-2012***

Solution

Steps to Follow
RAID technology allows for the construction of a logical volume, made up of several physical disks, to provide data redundancy, increased performance, or both. The Sun Fire T1000/T2000 servers support the following RAID configurations:

-Integrated Stripe, or IS volumes (RAID 0)

-Integrated Mirror, or IM volumes (RAID 1)

Note: The onboard disk controller LSI1064E, as well as the PCI-X SAS disk controller card (part number 370-7696) support up to 2 RAID volumes (IM or IS) at any one time. Prior to volume creation, ensure that the member disks are available and that there are not two volumes already created.

1. The following patches should be installed on the Sun Fire T1000 server before the customer can create RAID volumes:

121130-01 () or greater (for the Solaris 10 1/06 OS only) - provides updated hardware RAID support. This patch is not required for the Solaris 10 6/06 or later OS.

Note: For T1000 servers with system board HW dash level 07 or later, the patches specified below are pre-installed:

123456-01 () or greater - provides LSI 1064 controller firmware update.

119850-22 () or greater - provides updates to the mpt device driver and raidctl utility. 119850-17 () is pre-installed with the Solaris 10 6/06 OS.

These two patches however, are needed to enable the RAID for servers with motherboard HW dash levels 01 trough 06. To determine the motherboard HW dash level use the instructions in the T1000 Product Notes and the SC command

'showfru'

For details on accessing the System Controller (SC) reference

Document 1009721.1: Establishing a connection to Sun Fire [TM] T1000 or T2000 System Controller.

Example:

sc> showfru -s MB
SEGMENT: SD
/ManR
/ManR/UNIX_Timestamp32:      MON FEB 27 20:45:36 2006
/ManR/Description:           ASSY,Sun-Fire-T1000,Motherboard
/ManR/Manufacture Location:  Sriracha,Chonburi,Thailand
/ManR/Sun Part No:           5017302
/ManR/Sun Serial No:         EM010R
/ManR/Vendor:                Celestica
/ManR/Initial HW Dash Level: 04        <=== HW dash level
/ManR/Initial HW Rev Level:  06   
/ManR/Shortname:             T1000_MB
/SpecPartNo:                 885-0505-05

Note: The RAID functionality on T1000 is supported with 2-drive configuration. Any T1000 server with a single hard disk configuration can be upgraded to a two SAS disk configuration by installing2-drive assembly, part number XRA-SS2CG-73G10KZ.

For more information on how to implement hardware RAID on the T1000 server, refer to the Sun Fire T1000 Server Administration Guide (part number 819-3249).

2. The following patches should be installed on the Sun Fire T2000 server , before you create RAID volumes:

121130-01 () or greater (for the Solaris[TM] 10 1/06 OS only) - provides updated hardware RAID support. This patch is not required for the Solaris 10 6/06 or later OS.

119850-14 () or greater - provides updates to the mpt device driver and raidctl utility.

122165-02 () or greater - provides updated FCODE to the PCI-X SAS disk controller card (required only for earlier T2000 systems using this card).

Example:


Note:
The T2000 servers with part number 501-6843 are using the PCI-X controller card,
and servers with part number 501-7501 are using the onboard disk controller.
To determine the system (model) part number use the instructions in
T2000 Product Notes and the SC command 'showfru'.

sc> showfru -s mb
SEGMENT: SD
/ManR
/ManR/UNIX_Timestamp32:      SUN DEC 11 06:44:55 2005
/ManR/Description:           ASSY,Sun-Fire-T2000,CPU Board
/ManR/Manufacture Location:  Sriracha,Chonburi,Thailand
/ManR/Sun Part No:           5016843     <===== System part number
/ManR/Sun Serial No:         NC04EM
/ManR/Vendor:                Celestica
/ManR/Initial HW Dash Level: 06
/ManR/Initial HW Rev Level:  02
/ManR/Shortname:             T2000_MB
/SpecPartNo:                 885-0483-04

For more details on how to implement hardware RAID on the T2000 server, refer to the Sun Fire T2000 Server Administration Guide (part number 819-2549).

3. To determine whether the required OS patches have been installed on you system use the 'showrev' command for each patch number, for example:

# showrev -p | grep "Patch: 119850"

If any of the patches are missing, download them from MyO1racleSupport under patches and downloads section

NOTE : The mandatory patch levels should be applied and verified on the pre-installed image and every time when Solaris is reinstalled.

To verify the LSI disk(raid) controller firmware, refer to the Install.info file of the required firmware patch and use the 'prtconf' command syntax shown in the appendix. If necessary to upgrade the firmware follow the instructions in the patch Install.info and use the 'raidctl -F' command shown in the appendix.

Appendix: Brief summary of the RAID operations and command usage:

Create a mirror:

# raidctl -c [-r 1] primary secondary

Create a stripe:

# raidctl -c -r 0 disk1 disk2 [disk3] . . .

Delete a RAID volume:

# raidctl -d volume

Display RAID volumes:

# raidctl

Display the disk controller firmware/fcode version:

# prtconf -vp | egrep '(model|version)' | \
egrep -vi '(obp|firmwareversion| mpt-version)'

Update the disk controller firmware:

# raidctl -F [path_of_image_file] [controller#]

For more details on the RAID commands and operations refer to the Sun Fire T1000 and Sun Fire T2000 Administration Guides, using the provided links:

Sun Fire T1000 Administration Guide (Managing Disk Volumes)

Sun Fire T2000 Administration Guide (Managing Disk Volumes)

You may also find the following useful:

Document 1009346.1 : Hardware RAID usage on the Sun Fire[TM] T2000.

Product
Sun Fire T2000 Server
Sun Fire T1000 Server
Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 Server

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NOTE : The mandatory patch levels should be applied and verified on the pre-installed image and every time when Solaris is reinstalled.

Sun Fire T1000 platform-specific patches
Sun Fire T2000 platform-specific patches

normalized, patch, harware raid, firmware, disk controller, T1000, T2000
Previously Published As
88088

This is linked to troubleshooting doc 88084 (to be sent for tech review):
Creating a RAID volume on a Sun Fire[TM] T1000/T2000
Also ir references 88066 (already published) and published sunsolve infodoc 82832.

Product_uuid
41b7bc41-2581-11da-99bc-080020a9ed93 | Sun Fire T2000 Server
41b7bc41-2581-11da-99bc-080020a9ed93 | Sun Fire T2000 Server
e2066364-ce95-11db-9135-080020a9ed93 | Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 Server

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