.

README

Microsemi Adaptec RAID Controllers
Released
June 2017

Revision History
Issue

Issue Date

Details of Change

1April 20162016.rel1 Series 8 firmware/software maintenance release.

2

May 2016

2016.rel1 Series 7 firmware/software maintenance release.

3

September 2016.rel2 Series 8 firmware/software maintenance release.
2016

4

October
20162016.rel2 Series 6 firmware/software refresh; 8x05E RAID controller, first customer release.

5

November
2016

2016.rel2 Series 8 firmware patch release (build 33072)

6

January
2017

2016.rel2 Series 8 firmware patch release (build 33083)

7

February2017

2016.rel1 Series 7 firmware/software patch release (build 32114)

8

June 20172017.1 Series 8 firmware/software patch release (build 33173)

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

2

Contents
1 Important ....................................................................................................................................5
1 New Features in this Release.......................................................................................................62 Software Versions and Documentation.......................................................................................7
2.1 Software Versions.........................................................................................................................................7
2.2 Documentation.............................................................................................................................................7

3 Installation and Setup..................................................................................................................8
3.1 Supported Operating Systems......................................................................................................................8
3.2 SAS HD Cable Insertion.................................................................................................................................9
3.3 Flash Backup Unit Setup...............................................................................................................................93.3.1 Supercapacitor Setup with Series 6Q Controllers...........................................................................93.3.2 AFM-700 Cross-Controller Migration..............................................................................................93.3.3 AFM-700 Status LEDs......................................................................................................................93.3.4 Supercapacitor Over-Temperature Conditions...............................................................................9
3.4 Partition Setup..............................................................................................................................................9
3.5 DKMS Driver Setup.....................................................................................................................................10
3.6 Windows Setup...........................................................................................................................................10
3.6.1 Booting from 4K Sector Drives on Windows.................................................................................10
3.7 Solaris 11 Setup..........................................................................................................................................10
3.8 FreeBSD Setup............................................................................................................................................11
3.9 Fedora Linux Setup.....................................................................................................................................11
3.10 uEFI Secure Boot Setup.............................................................................................................................11
3.11 maxCache Setup.......................................................................................................................................11
3.12 Dual Firmware Flash Image Support.........................................................................................................12
3.13 Adaptec Flash Utility (AFU) Support.........................................................................................................12

4 Known Limitations.....................................................................................................................13
4.1 Linux Boot Device.......................................................................................................................................13
4.2 Boot Up Issues............................................................................................................................................13
4.3 OS Installation with RAW Devices...............................................................................................................13
4.4 Series 6 Controller Issues............................................................................................................................13
4.5 Hot-plugging the Flash Backup Module .....................................................................................................13
4.6 ATAPI Device Support..................................................................................................................................13
4.7 System Compatibility Issues........................................................................................................................13
4.8 Drive Compatibility Issues...........................................................................................................................14
4.9 RAID 50/RAID 60 Max Drives......................................................................................................................14
4.10 Solaris 32-bit Array Size Limits .................................................................................................................14
4.11 SLES 11 Boot Device Migration Issues......................................................................................................15
4.12 uEFI BIOS Issues........................................................................................................................................15
4.13 BIOS Power Management Settings...........................................................................................................15
4.14 BIOS Feature Disparity: Selectable Performance Mode ...........................................................................15
4.15 Simple Volume Support............................................................................................................................16
4.16 Auto-Volume Support...............................................................................................................................16
4.17 Force Rebuild in CTRL-A and uEFI BIOS.....................................................................................................16
4.18 Kernel Warning on Enclosure Power Off...................................................................................................16
4.19 RAID 1 Drive Order....................................................................................................................................16

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

34.20 hdparm Support........................................................................................................................................16
4.21 HDA Mode Reset.......................................................................................................................................16
4.22 maxView Storage Manager Issues............................................................................................................17
4.23 IOMeter Issues..........................................................................................................................................17
4.24 Boot RAW Drive Issues..............................................................................................................................17
4.25 VMware Commands Timeout Issues........................................................................................................17

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 841Important
This file contains important information about issues and errata that were discovered after completionof the standard product documentation.
In the case of conflict between various parts of the documentation set, this file contains the most current
information.

Controllers Described in this Document
Microsemi Adaptec® ASR-8405 / ASR-8405E / ASR-8805 / ASR-8805E / ASR-8885 / ASR-8885Q /ASR-81605Z / ASR-81605ZQ
Microsemi Adaptec® ASR-7805 / ASR-7805Q / ASR-71605 / ASR-71605Q / ASR-71605E / ASR-71685 /ASR-72405 / ASR-78165
Microsemi Adaptec® ASR-6405 / ASR-6445 / ASR-6805 / ASR-6805Q / ASR-6405E / ASR-6805E / ASR-6805E
R5 / ASR-6405T / ASR-6805T / ASR-6805TQ
Microsemi Adaptec® AFM-700 / AFM-600 Flash Backup Unit
Note: All Microsemi Adaptec® products are UL listed and for use only with UL listed ITE.

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

5New Features in this Release1

New Features in this Release
Microsemi Adaptec Series 8 SAS RAID Controller Patch Release software/firmware refresh, including:• Firmware updates:• Added a sanity check (CheckContainer) before using the container number on failover datacollection path for host. This will prevent the ASSERT and will make the firmware behavior
similar to 2015.1 OEM.
• Support drive nexus check to validate that it belongs to a drive.
• Support for 32 MB flash part added.
• Basecode updates:• Increased the basecode health thread's stack size to accommodate the stack size requirements
needed for functions registered by the Application/RAID Stack.
• Driver updates:• Support for new operating systems/versions (see Supported Operating Systems on page 8).
• Added improvements to the controller reset recovery.
• Added support to improve the packaging of the DKMS driver packages for the RPM installer.
• Pre-boot updates:• Updated Help and Prompt strings.
• Added warning message for SECURE ERASE option.
• Added support to clear the MBR/GPT partition while deleting the logical drive.
• Storage management utilities updates:• Added support for vSphere 6.5 web client plugin.
• Added support for XenServer 7.0.
• Added ability to enable configuration of WebServer timeout.
• Added support for Modes 0Eh (Microcode with Offsets and Defer Activation) and 0Fh (Activate
Deferred Microcode) for expander upgrade in ARCCONF and maxView GUI.
• Support for Mode 7 for SATA drives in ARCCONF IMAGEUPDATE command.
• Miscellaneous UI changes/enhancements.
See maxView Storage Manager Readme for complete list of new features and enhancements.
• Bugfixes (see the Release Notes for a complete list)

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

6Software Versions and Documentation

2

Software Versions and Documentation

2.1

Software Versions
Note: You can download the latest firmware, BIOS, driver software, and storage management
utilities at start.microsemi.com.
• Firmware:• Series 8 controllers: Version 7.11.0 Build 33173• Drivers:• Microsoft Windows: Version 7.5.0.54013• Linux: Version 1.2.1-54013• VMware: Version 1.2.1-54013• Solaris: Version 7.5.0.52025• FreeBSD: 7.5.0.52013• maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF/BootUSB: Version 2.04.00 Build 22665

2.2

Documentation
Note: You can download the latest documentation at start.microsemi.com.

PDF Format
•
•
•
•
•

Microsemi Adaptec SAS RAID Controllers Installation and User's Guide
Microsemi Adaptec RAID Controller Command Line Utility User's Guide
maxView Storage Manager User's Guide for Microsemi Adaptec ARC-Family Controllers
maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF Command Line Utility README
Microsemi Adaptec Event Monitor User's Guide

HTML and Text Format• maxView Storage Manager Online Help
• maxView Storage Manager/ARCCONF README.TXT file

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 87

Installation and Setup

3

Installation and Setup
Refer to these guides for installation and setup details:• Microsemi Adaptec SAS RAID Controllers Installation and User's Guide contains complete installation
information for the controllers and drivers.
• Microsemi Adaptec RAID Controllers Command Line Utility User's Guide contains complete installation
information for ARCCONF.
• maxView Storage Manager User's Guide for ARC-Family Controllers contains complete installation
information for the maxView Storage Manager software.

3.1

Supported Operating Systems
Drivers for this release have been tested and certified on the following operating systems. You can load
the drivers on out-of-box operating system versions, the latest service pack, or software update.
Compatibility issues may be seen with untested OS versions.
Note: 32-bit drivers are provided as-is and are not recommended for typical installations.
Microsemi recommends using 64-bit drivers only.

Microsoft Windows
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Microsoft® Windows® Server 2016 (64-bit)
Microsoft® Windows® Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit)
Microsoft® Windows® SBS 2011 SP2 (Standard and Essential, 64-bit)
Microsoft® Windows® 10 (64-bit)
Microsoft® Windows® 8, 8.1 (64-bit)
Microsoft® Windows® 7 (64-bit)
Microsoft® WinPE 5.x (64-bit)

Linux for x64
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Red Hat® Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7.2, 7.1 (64-bit)
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux/CentOS 6.7, 6.6 (64-bit)
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux/CentOS 5.11, 5.10 (64-bit)
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP1 (64-bit)
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (64-bit)
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4, SP3 (64-bit)
Debian Linux 8.1 (64-bit)
Ubuntu Linux 14.04.3, 14.04.2 (64-bit)
Ubuntu Linux 12.04.5, 12.04.4 (64-bit)
Fedora Linux 22 (64-bit)

FreeBSD• FreeBSD® 10.2 (64-bit)• FreeBSD® 9.3 (64-bit)

Solaris• Solaris 11.2 (32-bit)• Solaris 10 U9 (32-bit)

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 88Installation and Setup

Virtual OS Environments• VMware ESXi 6.0 (64-bit)• VMware ESXi 5.5 U3, U2 (64-bit)• Citrix XenServer 6.5.1 (64-bit)

3.2

SAS HD Cable Insertion
Be sure to orient external SAS HD cables correctly, prior to insertion on Microsemi Adaptec Series 7 andSeries 8 RAID controllers. With most standard implementations (Molex, Amphenol, FCI receptacles),it's possible to defeat the mechanical keying of the mini-SAS HD plug connector system by turning theplug upside-down.

3.3

Flash Backup Unit Setup

3.3.1

Supercapacitor Setup with Series 6Q Controllers
With Series 6Q controllers, you must affix the supercapacitor module to the computer chassis with cableties. For instructions, refer to the Flash Backup Unit Installation Guide, available at start.microsemi.com.
Note: The RAID Controller User's Guide describes how to install the supercapacitor module using
the mounting plate method. The instructions apply only to Series 7Q/8Q/8ZQ controllers andSeries 7/8 controllers with optional flash backup unit.

3.3.2

AFM-700 Cross-Controller Migration
Migrating the AFM-700 daughterboard/supercacpacitor module from one controller series to anotheris not supported in this release; for example, from a Microsemi Adaptec Series 7 controller to a Microsemi
Adaptec Series 8 controller, or vice versa.

3.3.3

AFM-700 Status LEDs
• LED DS2: Charger Enabled• DS2 Solid On: Charger Enabled• DS2 Blinks: Charger Off (during cap learn cycle)• DS2 Temporary Blinks: No Supercapacitor attached• LED DS3: Supercapacitor power indication; Supercapacitor charge Bleeding LED• LED DS4: Blinks faster when backup in progress

3.3.4

Supercapacitor Over-Temperature Conditions
When the supercap temperature exceeds the threshold, the backup unit is disabled and the supercap
charger is turned off.
The firmware sends notification events to the host and cache layer to disable the write-cache settings
for logical drives (if write caching is enabled).
When the supercap temperature returns to normal, notification events are sent to the host and cachelayer to turn on write-cache settings, and the backup unit is re-enabled.

3.4

Partition Setup• Logical drives with >2 TB of storage require GPT partitioning (GUID Partition Table) for OS installationor use as a data container.
Note: Windows creates MBR partitions (master boot record), by default, which can address
only 2 TB of storage space. If the logical drive is >2 TB, it is segmented into two partitions
without warning (one up to 2 TB, the other with the remaining disk space). Linux displays a
pop-up message that the disk needs to be partitioned.

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 89Installation and Setup• Before attempting to install an operating system in uEFI mode, you must delete all MBR partitions
from the disk or reformat the disk with GPT. The installation may fail if you try to install on a disk
with a MBR partitioning scheme. See also uEFI BIOS Issues on page 15.

3.5

DKMS Driver Setup
To install the Linux drivers from source with Dynamic Kernel Module Support (for persistence acrossacross kernel updates), download the Linux Driver Source Code package from the support page for yourcontroller at start.adaptec.com, then follow the instructions in the embedded Readme.

3.6

Windows Setup• When installing the driver on a Windows 2012 R2 system with two controllers installed (Microsemi
Adaptec Series 7 or Series 8) and at least one logical drive on each controller, the OS fails to detect
the logical drives during installation. (The issue is not seen with only one controller.)
WORKAROUND: Use the Windows inbox driver for installation, then update with the driver after
the installation completes.
• When installing the driver on Windows SBS 2011 Essential, the installer times out before listing all
discovered drives. The number of listed drives varies, depending on the drive type (e.g., SAS vs.
SATA). This is a limitation in the Windows SBS installer; the RAID controller driver detects all attacheddrives.
• See also, Booting from 4K Sector Drives on Windows on page 10.

3.6.1

Booting from 4K Sector Drives on Windows
Note: Boot support for 4K sector hard drives varies by vendor and OS version and is supported
on uEFI systems only. (For more information, see http://ask.adaptec.com.)
To install Windows on a 4K sector drive in uEFI mode:
1. Refresh the screen after the driver is installed.
2. Delete the two extra partitions (created erroneously) before continuing: the "Recovery" partition
and the "System" partition.
3. Do NOT remove the USB driver disk until the installation completes. If you remove the USB drive
early, Windows displays a message saying it could not continue to the next phase of the installation.

3.7

Solaris 11 Setup
If an older version of the driver is installed on an existing Solaris OS, you must remove it before installingthe new driver.
1. As root, check which AAC RAID driver package is installed on your system:# modinfo | grep aac

2. Find the inbox AAC package name:# pkg list | grep aac
driver/storage/aac <-- inbox aac IPS packagename

3. Remove the package:# pkg uninstall driver/storage/aac

4. Run the following commands to reconfigure while rebooting the machine:# touch /reconfigure# reboot

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

10Installation and Setup

Note: Installing Solaris 11 on a bootable array is not supported in this release.

3.8

FreeBSD Setup
To successfully install the driver on FreeBSD, you must prevent the in-box driver from loading. Duringboot, perform these steps:
1. Press Option 3. Escape to loader prompt.
2. Set hint.aacraid.0.disabled=1
3. Boot.
4. Load the driver.

3.9

Fedora Linux Setup
To avoid a known PCIe Active State Power Management issue under Fedora Linux 14, you must add the
OS option "pcie_aspm=off" in the GRUB bootloader file "menu.lst". Follow these steps:
1. When the first Fedora installation screen appears, press the Tab key.
2. Before pressing the first reboot button, edit grub/menu.lst:
a. Press Alt+F2
b. cd /mnt/sysimage/boot/grub/c. Open the menu.lst file
3. Add "pcie_aspm=off" just after "rhgb quiet". The new line should look like this:root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.3-85.fc13.i686.PAE... rhgb quiet pcie_aspm=off

3.10

uEFI Secure Boot Setup
If you enabled Secure Boot through the uEFI system BIOS setup menu, and you are using Linux
distributions with Secure Boot support, you must add a public key to the MOK list (Machine Owner Key)
before installing the driver on an existing OS. Refer to your Linux distribution's documentation for details
on how to configure Secure Boot.
Note: In this release, secure boot is tested and on Ubuntu 14.04.4 only. Secure Boot may not be
supported on your Linux distribution. For more information, see http://ask.adaptec.com.
To add the key to the MOK list using the mokutil utility:
mokutil --import aacraid_key_pub.derEnter and confirm a password for the MOK enrollment request, then reboot. The pending MOK key
enrollment request will be noticed by shim.efi, which will launch MokManager.efi to allow you tocomplete the enrollment from the uEFI console.
Enter the password you previously associated with this request (using mokutil), or enter your root
password, then confirm the enrollment. The public key is added to the MOK list, which is persistent.
Once a key is on the MOK list, it is propagated automatically to the system key ring for this and subsequent
reboots, when uEFI Secure Boot is enabled.

3.11

maxCache Setup
maxCache SSD caching is supported on Microsemi Adaptec Series Q controllers only.
The maximum number of SSDs that you can install on a controller for maxCache applications is:

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

11Installation and Setup

Controller Model

Max SSDs

Microsemi Adaptec 8885Q/81605ZQ

up to 8 SSDs, with 2 TB total capacity

Microsemi Adaptec 7805Q/71605Q

up to 8 SSDs, with 2 TB total capacity

Microsemi Adaptec 6805Q/6805TQ

up to 8 SSDs, with 1 TB total capacity

See www.adaptec.com/compatibility for a list of maxCache-compatible SSD drives.

3.12

Dual Firmware Flash Image Support
Microsemi Adaptec Series 7 and Series 8 controllers support active and passive firmware images. Built-in
logic determines the "right time" to update from passive to active, either at shutdown or boot up, andis designed to protect against image corruption or data loss due to power failure during image update.
If the update occurs in the boot path, a server reboot is expected. Additionally, you must be runningthe latest drivers.
Note: This feature is enabled only when upgrading from and to a firmware version that supports
dual firmware images. For customers upgrading from a release prior to May 2013 (specifically,
Firmware Version 7.2.0, Build 30260), there is no change in behavior. The firmware image isupdated in one stage.

3.13

Adaptec Flash Utility (AFU) Support
Microsemi Adaptec Series 8 controllers do not support the DOS-based Adaptec Flash Utility (describedin the user's guide). To flash a Series 8 controller, use the uEFI BIOS, ARCCONF, maxView Storage Manager,
or the maxView Storage Manager bootable USB image.

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

12Known Limitations

4

Known Limitations

4.1

Linux Boot Device
Regardless of which device you select to install the OS, the boot record is always written to Device 0.
As a result, Linux will fail to boot if you delete or swap away Device 0. For example, if you create threearrays in the BIOS—VOL-0, VOL-1, and VOL-2—install the OS on VOL-1, then swap VOL-0 and VOL-2,
Linux will fail to boot. Restore the original array sequence and Linux boots normally. Ideally, you should
always install on Device 0.

4.2

Boot Up Issues
The BIOS returns an error if you attempt to make a logical drive bootable when the previous bootable
logical drive is in the failed state.
WORKAROUND: Delete the failed logical drive first, then set the other logical drive as bootable.

4.3

OS Installation with RAW Devices
With Microsemi Adaptec Series 7 and Series 8 controllers, installing the OS in a mixed configuration
with RAID Arrays and RAW devices is not supported.
WORKAROUND: Remove the RAW devices, install the OS on the RAID array, then re-install the RAW
devices.

4.4

Series 6 Controller Issues
The following issues are seen only with Microsemi Adaptec Series 6 RAID controllers:• Due to a PCIe configuration problem with ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS motherboards, Series 6 controllers
are not detected in slots with x8 links (e.g., slots, 2,4,6).
WORKAROUND: Use a slot with x16 links.
• Hybrid RAID 10 logical drives (composed of an equal number of SSDs and HDDs) are not built
correctly in the CTRL-A BIOS; the segment order is incorrect.
WORKAROUND: Create the Hybrid RAID 10 in maxView Storage Manager or ARCCONF.

4.5

Hot-plugging the Flash Backup Module
Hot-plugging the AFM-700/AFM-600 supercapacitor module is not recommended. Doing so may resultin unusual status updates, such as Preparing to Dead to Ready.

4.6

ATAPI Device Support
Microsemi Adaptec Series 6, Series 7, and Series 8 RAID controllers do not support ATAPI CD-ROM, DVD,or tape devices.

4.7

System Compatibility Issues• The following servers/enclosures are not supported in this release:• ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS• Promise J630 and J830 enclosures• With a Series 7 or Series 8 controller connected to an ASUS P8Z77V-LK motherboard, the controller
may not be detected in slot 7.
WORKAROUND: Use slot 2 or slot 5.
• With a Series 7 or Series 8 controller connected to an ASUS P8B-M motherboard, the CTRL-A BIOS
fails to load automatically after POST.

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13Known Limitations

WORKAROUND: Press ENTER to load the BIOS during POST.
• Intel servers do not completely clear popup messages when there are multiple popups in a single
operation in the uEFI/HII interface.
• With the HP StorageWorks D2700 enclosure, a maximum of 25 SAS drives or 24 SATA drives aresupported. Slot 0 cannot be used with SATA drives.
• Discovery of Series 7 RAID controllers during system POST may be delayed in some PCIe 3.0 systems,
if link-up errors occur during PCIe link negotiation. These link-up errors occur rarely, are corrected
automatically, and pose no risk of performance or data integrity issues. If your system is configured
to log correctable PCIe errors you may see a small number of errors recorded at the time of link
training.

4.8

Drive Compatibility Issues• SMR HM1 drives are not supported in this release. (SMR HA and SMR DM drives are supported for
RAID volumes and hot spares; see New Features in this Release on page 6.)• Seagate ST5000AS0011 5 TB DM drives are not supported in this release.
• OCZ Vertex 4 SSDs are not supported in this release.
• With Seagate Constellation ES drives (e.g., ST3500514NS) with FW SN11, a medium error might
result in SCSI command timeouts, depending on the I/O load. This condition might be seen whencreating a logical drive with the "build" initialization method.
• With Hitachi HUA721050KLA330 hard drives, the drive LED blinks just once when using the CTRL-A
BIOS "Identify Drive" option. The LED blinks continuously if blinked from ARCCONF or maxView
Storage Manager.
• With HP LTO-4 Ultrium 1840 tape drives, backup fails with Adaptec Series 7 controllers.
WORKAROUND: Upgrade the drive firmware to A63D using an on-board SAS or SATA controller,
then try again.
• With Tandberg LTO-4 tape drives, backup fails during longer write sequences with Adaptec Series
7 and Adaptec Series 8 controllers. The error is seen during writes in the 10 GB–20 GB range, causing
the operation to be aborted.

4.9

RAID 50/RAID 60 Max Drives
The maximum number of drives in a RAID 50 or RAID 60 differ between maxView Storage Manager,
ARCCONF, and the BIOS:• BIOS and ARCCONF: 128 drives max• RAID 50 - From 2-16 legs with 3-32 drives/leg• RAID 60 - From 2-16 legs with 4-16 drives/leg• maxView Storage Manager:• Assumes 2 legs for RAID 50/RAID 60 (non-selectable)• RAID 50 3-32 drives/leg (64 total)• RAID 60 4-16 drives/leg (32 total)

4.10

Solaris 32-bit Array Size Limits
Due to an OS limitation in Solaris 32-bit systems, the practical size limit for an array on Solaris 32 is 1TB.
Note: If you create a >1TB array, OS tools, such as format or fdisk, won't detect them.

1

SMR: Shingled Magnetic Recording. HM: Host Managed (host system manages new commands)

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8

14Known Limitations

4.11

SLES 11 Boot Device Migration Issues
By default, SuSE Linux uses the "by-id" method to identify drives/partitions on the boot device. As aresult, migration from one controller to another (e.g., ASR-8885 to ASR-81605ZQ) fails because theoriginal boot drive ID is not found on the new controller.
WORKAROUND: Switch to the "by-uuid" method, then perform the migration. Follow these steps:
1. Use the blkid command (built-in utility) to find the UUIDs of file systems:
sles11sp1boot:~ # blkid/dev/sda1: UUID="4512cf7d-4e22-4dfa-8991-4084dae41409" TYPE="swap"/dev/sda2: UUID="b144a0a2-b7fc-47fd-8459-ba40d0f663cd" TYPE="ext3"

2. cd /etc, then:a. Edit fstab fileb. Change the "by-id" names of file systems to their corresponding "uuid" names found in Step #1
Note: Make a backup of the fstab file before modifying it.
3. cd /boot/grub, then:a. Edit menu.lst fileb. Change the "by-id" names of file systems to their corresponding "uuid" names found in Step #1
Note: Make a backup of the menu.lst file before modifying it.
4. Shutdown the SuSE system, change the HBA/controller, then boot the system.

4.12

uEFI BIOS Issues• The uEFI utility may become unresponsive after 15–30 minutes of continuous use when you performa large number of steps or continuously navigate through multiple screens (array creation, deletion,
viewing array properties, etc.).
WORKAROUND: Restart the server if uEFI becomes unresponsive.
• Using "FW Update from Media" and "Save Support Archive" in the same uEFI session may cause
the system to become unresponsive.
WORKAROUND: Restart the server if uEFI becomes unresponsive.
• uEFI-mode setup is not supported on Supermicro X9SCL-LN4F and X9DRi-F motherboards.
• When booting into the system BIOS (uEFI) in Series 7, the Identify Drive operation fails.

4.13

BIOS Power Management Settings
When setting the power management timers for a logical drive in the CTRL-A BIOS, the RPM slow down
timer must be less than the power off setting. Otherwise, the BIOS returns an error. For instance, anerror occurs if you set the slow down timer to three minutes and the power off setting to Never.
WORKAROUND: Use maxView Storage Manager or ARCCONF to set the timer values for the logical drive.

4.14

BIOS Feature Disparity: Selectable Performance ModeIn the Legacy (CTRL-A) BIOS, the Selectable Performance Mode option is enabled for controllers operating
in HBA Mode. This differs from maxView Storage Manager and ARCCONF, which disable Selectable
Performance Mode if the controller is in HBA Mode.

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 815Known Limitations

4.15

Simple Volume Support
This release supports a maximum of 128 Simple Volumes in maxView Storage Manager, ARCCONF, andthe BIOS.

4.16

Auto-Volume Support• Changing a controller into Auto-Volume mode (ARCCONF/BIOS) is not supported if the configuration
includes any logical device type other than Simple Volume, including a maxCache Device. The modeswitch from RAID mode to Auto-Volume mode is blocked if any other type of logical volume exists(including maxCache). After switching to Auto-Volume mode, you can create and delete Simple
Volumes only in maxView Storage Manager, ARCCONF, and the BIOS.
• In Auto-Volume mode, only the first 128 RAW drives are converted to Simple Volumes; the rest of
the RAW drives remain unchanged. If you uninitialize a Ready drive while the controller is in
Auto-Volume mode, the firmware converts the drive automatically until the Simple Volume countreaches the maximum.

4.17

Force Rebuild in CTRL-A and uEFI BIOS
With Automatic Failover disabled, Force Rebuild in the CTRL-A (Legacy) BIOS fails if you insert a new
drive in place of a pulled member drive. If same member drive is pulled and re-inserted, the logical drive
rebuilds successfully. In the uEFI BIOS, Force Rebuild fails in both cases; that is, when inserting a new
drive or re-inserting the pulled member drive.

4.18

Kernel Warning on Enclosure Power Off
On Linux systems running kernel version 3.3 or older (e.g., RHEL 6.5), powering off an enclosure may
result in a kernel warning because the enclosure device goes offline before the attached drives go offline.
To avoid these warnings, install the kernel patch provided at this link:
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/jejb/scsi.git/commit/?h=fixes&id=11e52a699afff576606ceb6cf697270459f1a4aa
Note: Newer Linux distributions, such as RHEL 7 (which uses Linux kernel 3.10), do not have thisissue.

4.19

RAID 1 Drive Order
In a RAID 1 "mirrored set," the lower slot location of the two drives is treated as the master. When amaster drive in a RAID 1 is removed, the slave becomes the new master. When the old master is
re-inserted, it is treated as a new member of the RAID 1 and becomes the mirror set slave. In the BIOS,
the drive order changes to reflect the new master/slave relationship.
This is expected behavior.

4.20

hdparm Support
On Windows and Linux, the hdparm -i command, used to set and view ATA hard disk drive parameters,
is not supported for direct-attached drives on Microsemi Adaptec SAS controllers. Since hdparm -i isdesigned for native libata/ide drivers, the command works as designed and the behavior is expected.
WORKAROUND: Use the hdparm -I command instead.

4.21

HDA Mode Reset
Microsemi Adaptec Series 6/7/8 controllers use the HDA mode jumper on the controller board for
performing a controller reset. If an HDA reset is required, contact Microsemi Adaptec Support forassistance.

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 816Known Limitations

4.22

maxView Storage Manager Issues• Standard User(Non-Admin) has permission to perform certain tasks that should be blocked for
non-administrators. The following tasks should be blocked for Standard User(Non-Admin):• Perform all tasks of the Home and Systems groups from the ribbon• Add/remove systems• Update controller/driver/enclosure firmware• Set system settings• Save/restore configuration• When hot-removing a RAW drive from an enclosure, there is no Event and Update in maxView.
• The "Disable write cache operation failed" message is seen when the maxCache write cache disable
all operation is performed in maxView.
• In Windows 2012, maxView fails to login after S1/S4 test.
• Restore configuration operation fails when attempting to restore the configuration.
WORKAROUND: Set the DirtyPageThresholdValue set once the logical drive and maxCache are
created, then add the DirtyPageThresholdValue in XML.

4.23

IOMeter Issues
The system can crash when running IOMeter on three logical drives with the following configurations:• Queue depth: 16• Size: 4K, 16K, 32K for each logical drive, respectively.
• Read ratio: 25%, 50%, and 75%, respectively.

4.24

Boot RAW Drive Issues
During RAW drive check for device ID 0, the firmware tries to verify if this slot can be used by any othercontainer in the system as a copyback slot. This is done by mapping the previousCookie, NextCookie,
and OrigCookie partitions. These variables are memset to 0 during logical drive creation. This value
matches device ID 0 and the slot is reserved (the RAW drive in the slot was hidden from OS, as this slot
was a target for copyback in another container and contents may get overwritten).
WORKAROUND: Add additional qualifiers to decide if the slot was really a copyback target by checking
the partition information. If it is a target, the drive will be reserved and will not be exposed; if not, thedrive will be exposed.

4.25

VMware Commands Timeout Issues
Some VMWare commands will be timed out immediately when issued, causing a link reset on thecontroller. In some cases, the timeout for a command will result in 0, and was updated to 1 second.
This time was too short for some commands, and it caused a timeout and link reset on the drive. Thishas been seen in VMWare. However, anytime the timeout is set to zero, this would be possible.
WORKAROUND: When the timeout is detected as 0, set the timeout value to 30 seconds. This will allow
for a normal timeout value.

CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 817Microsemi Corporate Headquarters
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CONFIDENTIAL Document Number: ESC-2160728, Issue 8, June 2017