.

Release Notes

ARC Software/Firmware
Released
October 2017

Revision History
Issue

Issue Date

Details of Change

1

October2017

Document created.

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

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Contents
Software License Agreement...........................................................................................................5
1 About This Release.......................................................................................................................8
1.1 Release Identification...................................................................................................................................8
1.2 Supported Controllers...................................................................................................................................8

2 What is New?...............................................................................................................................9
2.1 Fixes and Enhancements...............................................................................................................................92.1.1 Fixes and Enhancements for Firmware Release Build 33204.........................................................92.1.2 Fixes and Enhancements for Drivers Build 55022.........................................................................10
2.1.3 Fixes and Enhancements for maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF Version 2.05.00 Build
22932......................................................................................................................................................10
2.2 Limitations..................................................................................................................................................112.2.1 Limitations for Firmware Build 33204..........................................................................................112.2.2 Limitations for Drivers Build 55022..............................................................................................112.2.3 Limitations for maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF Version 2.05.00 Build 22932....................11

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

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Tables
Table 1 • Release Summary.......................................................................................................................................8

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

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Software License Agreement
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IS SUBJECT TO THE SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
OF MICROSEMI, INC. AND OTHER LICENSORS WHOSE SOFTWARE MAY BE BUNDLED WITH THIS PRODUCT.
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ENTIRE UNUSED PRODUCT FOR A FULL REFUND.
In return for acquiring a license to use the Microsemi software, which may include software from third
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you reproduce Microsemi's copyright proprietary legends. Notwithstanding the foregoing, theSoftware may be used on the home, laptop or other secondary computer of the principal userof the Software, and an additional copy of the Software may be made to support such use. As
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together with all copies or modifications in any form.

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

56. Special Terms Applicable to Databases. Where a database is included with the Software, you
acknowledge that it is licensed only in connection with the use of the Software to perform disccreation, and that the database and all data derived therefrom must be maintained in confidencein accordance with the provisions of Section 4. This license does not grant you any rights to distributeor disclose such database or data.
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is furnished will be free from defects in material or workmanship under normal use and service fora period of thirty (30) days from the date of delivery to you. MICROSEMI AND ITS LICENSORS DO
NOT AND CANNOT WARRANT THE PERFORMANCE OR RESULTS YOU MAY OBTAIN BY USING THE
SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION. THE FOREGOING STATES THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIESMICROSEMI AND ITS LICENSORS WILL PROVIDE FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY. EXCEPT FOR THE
FOREGOING LIMITED WARRANTY, MICROSEMI AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO WARRANTIES,EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED, AS TO NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY
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8. The entire liability of Microsemi and its licensors, and your exclusive remedy for a breach of thiswarranty, shall be:a. The replacement of any media not meeting the above limited warranty which is returned to
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in materials or workmanship, you may terminate this Agreement by returning the Software andyour money will be refunded.
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11. Government Restricted Rights. The Software is subject to restricted rights as follows. If the Softwareis acquired under the terms of a GSA contract: use, reproduction or disclosure is subject to therestrictions set forth in the applicable ADP Schedule contract. If the Software is acquired under theterms of a DoD or civilian agency contract, use, duplication or disclosure by the Government is subject
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12. General. You acknowledge that you have read this Agreement, understand it, and that by using theSoftware you agree to be bound by its terms and conditions. You further agree that it is the complete
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Should any provision of this Agreement be declared unenforceable in any jurisdiction, then such

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

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provision shall be deemed severable from this Agreement and shall not affect the remainder hereof.
All rights in the Software not specifically granted in this Agreement are reserved by Microsemi.
Should you have any questions concerning this license, contact:
Microsemi Corporation
Corporate Headquarters
One Enterprise
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 USA

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

7About This Release1

About This Release
This document describes a maintenance release package of Microsemi's Adaptec® RAID controller
firmware, OS drivers, tools, and host management software.

1.1

Release Identification
The firmware, software, and driver versions for this maintenance release are shown in the following
table.
Table 1 • Release Summary
Package Release Date

October 17, 2017

Firmware Version

7.12.0 build 33204 (basecode 05.01.029.000)

Microsemi Adaptec RAID Controller Configuration Utili- 2.05.00.22932
ties(ARCCONF Command Line Interface, maxView Storage
Manager, maxView vSphere Plugin, Boot USB, EventMonitor)
Drivers Package Version

B55022 [Windows]
B55022 [Linux]
B55022 [VMware]
B55022 [FreeBSD]

1.2

Supported Controllers
The following controllers are supported:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Microsemi Adaptec RAID 8405
Microsemi Adaptec RAID 8405E
Microsemi Adaptec RAID 8805
Microsemi Adaptec RAID 8805E
Microsemi Adaptec RAID 8885
Microsemi Adaptec RAID 8885Q
Microsemi Adaptec RAID 81605Z
Microsemi Adaptec RAID 81605ZQ

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

8What is New?

2

What is New?

2.1

Fixes and Enhancements
This section details the fixes and enhancements in this release.

2.1.1

Fixes and Enhancements for Firmware Release Build 33204
This release provides the following fixes and enhancements:• Removed support for auto-detecting the hot-plugged drives feature from ExtScsiPassThru layer
without needing to reload the controller UEFI driver.
• Previous behavior: Drives that are added after the UEFI driver has loaded could be seen by the
UEFI driver by making a second call to the function EfiScsiPassThruGetNextTargetLun. Thisbehavior has now been removed.
• Current behavior: To see hot-plugged drives added after the UEFI driver has loaded, you willneed to remove and reload the controller UEFI driver and then you will see the new drives.
You will no longer see hot-plugged drives by calling the EfiScsiPassThruGetNextTargetLun
function.
• Risk: Low• Added support for physical drive failure events through PBSI event logging.
• Added support for Green Backup events through PBSI event logging.
• Added support to allow RAW drives to remain in a spun-down state when the user spins down thedrive.
• Exposure: Applies to RAW drives only.
• Fixed an issue where the console showed a controller cache warning due to a backup unit fault
after flashing new firmware in UEFI mode.
• Fixed an issue where the box display order could be inconsistent during POST.
• Fixed an issue with setting the Spare Drive Flag=0 for PBSI event logging.
• Removed bad character from "Physical drive failure" field in PBSI.
• Fixed a timestamp issue in PBSI.
• Fixed an issue where RAW drives were lost when spun down and followed by an ARCCONF RESCAN.
• Fixed an issue with a media change error message in the UEFI script, causing a script failure.
• Fixed an issue where entering the system BIOS, changing and saving a setting, then exiting caused
the system to hang (introduce CPLD 12).
Note:
CPLD is not activated automatically with a standard firmware flash. To update CPLD, run thefollowing command in ARCCONF: ARCCONF CPLD 1 FLASHUPDATE
See the Microsemi Adaptec RAID Controller Command Line Utility User's Guide (ESC-2160659)
for more information.
• Fixed an issue where the drive would go offline during an expander reset operation.
• Fixed expander mapping issues.
• Fixed an issue where the Read Buffer would fail.
• Fixed an issue where the controller would hang when the drive member was removed from a RAID
5 array.
• Fixed an issue where the UEFI would freeze while saving the support archive.
• Added support for driver NMI feature to controllers.
• Fixed an issue where the INQUIRY to VPD page 0xB0 WRITE SAME length was leading to IO timeouts.

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9What is New?

• Root cause: The INQUIRY to VPD page 0xB0 has a field to specify the maximum WRITE SAME
length that the drive can support. SAT-4 had this field as unspecified and therefore SATL wassetting it. However, this is the field that the latest Linux version uses to determine the proper
WRITE SAME size to send and treats "0" as the sending maximum. This led to IO timeouts.
• Exposure: Setting correct fields in INQUIRY to VPD page 0xB0.
• Fix: Set the WRITE SAME length field to the maximum amount a 512-buffer can accept.
• Risk: None
• Set the SES, STE, SVPD to a higher priority.
• Root cause: The firmware sends an RCV_DIAGNOSTICS command to the VSEP every 10 seconds
and will time out this command if it does not receive a completion within 30 seconds. In highly
loaded systems, the SVPD thread may not wake up within 30 seconds, causing the firmware
to time out the command.
• Exposure: ARC programs• Fix: Increase the priority of the SES, STE, and SVPD threads. These threads are low-activity
threads and should be serviced immediately by the firmware. The high-activity threads, like
SAS_FAST, will have a lower priority relative to the SES, STE, and SVPD threads.
• Risk: Low

2.1.2

Fixes and Enhancements for Drivers Build 55022
This release includes the following Windows driver fixes and enhancements:• Fixed an issue where the IO would be lost during heavy IO, resulting in an IOP reset.
• Root cause: A race condition exists in MSI-X mode which would cause the Fib pointer to becleaned up for the wrong handle.
• Fix: Use the MSIlock() for locking when using MSI-X.
• Exposure: Affects Windows driver for Series-6, 7, 8, and SmartRaid.
• Risk: Low
This release includes the following Linux and VMware driver fixes and enhancements:• Fixed an issue where a driver could crash during heavy IO runs with 64 RAID volumes.
• Root cause: A call trace was seen when running heavy IO on 64 containers, which included
driver re-entry after completing a command.
• Fix: Use atomic memory allocation for the buffer, as it is in interrupt mode.
• Exposure: All Linux versions.
• Risk: Low

2.1.3

Fixes and Enhancements for maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF Version 2.05.00
Build 22932
This release provides the following fixes and enhancements:• Added support for executing UART commands through ARCCONF.
• Added a new command in ARCCONF to enable/disable SMART poll on the controller for RAW drives.
• Fixed an issue where exceeding the backup unit temperature caused a permanent warning sign todisplay on the controller.
• Root cause: There was no check to not render the warning icon when the CAP temperaturein the backup unit went back to normal.
• Fix: When the CAP temperature is back to normal, the rendering of the orange warning icon
for CAP temperature is blocked.
• Risk: Low

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10What is New?

• Fixed an issue where every user was being assigned an administrator role regardless of their originalrole.
• Root cause: Using the domain name, every user was getting the Admin role irrespective of his
original role.
• Fix: Correct user roles are identified using domain-level authentication as well.
• Risk: Low• Miscellaneous UI changes/enhancements.

2.2

Limitations
This section details the limitations in this release.

2.2.1

Limitations for Firmware Build 33204
There are no known limitations for this release.

2.2.2

Limitations for Drivers Build 55022
There are no known limitations for this release.

2.2.3

Limitations for maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF Version 2.05.00 Build 22932
This release includes the following limitation:• The locate logical device operation in GUI displays a blank dialog box.
WORKAROUND: Use the physical device locate operation to locate the logical device member
drives.

Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1

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Microsemi Proprietary and Confidential Release Notes Issue 1