zfs discuss - Feb 2011 - Sil3124 Sata controller for ZFS on Sparc OpenSolaris Nevada b130

As part of a small home project, I have purchased a SIL3124 hba in hopes 
of attaching an external drive/drive enclosure via eSATA.

The host in question is an old Sun Netra T1 currently running 
OpenSolaris Nevada b130.

The card in question is this Sil3124 card:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16816124003

although I did not purchase it from Newegg.  I specifically purchased 
this card as I have seen specific reports of it working under 
Solaris/OpenSolaris distro''s on several Solaris mailing lists.

After installing the card, and associated components, I did numerous 
things in an attempt to see the single drive attached to my Netra, to 
include reconfigure boot, several different devfsadm commands, and 
looking for components using scanpci and cfgadm.  Although I am not 
functional yet (I can''t see my drive with format or format -e), I 
believe I see my hba with both prtdiag and prtconf.  I will post some 
additional system information at the bottom of this note.

To cut to the chase, after jumping on Yahoo for some RTFM stuff, it 
looks like there is a system package called *SUNWsi3124*.  I looked on 
my Netra, and it isn''t there.  I reviewed my OpenSolaris Nevada b130 
iso, and it also doesn''t have a SUNWsi3124 package.

On a whim, I looked on my Sun Ultra20m2 system (X64 AMD system) which is 
also running OpenSolaris Nevada b130, and this package is there.  So it 
looks like the SUNWsi3124 package is x86/x64 only?

I don''t know if this specifically is why my Netra doesn''t see
my eSATA
drive, but the SUNWsi3124 package is the best lead I have so far.

Thanks for any comments,

Jerry

.....................................................................
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
====================================================================
# prtdiag
System Configuration:  Sun Microsystems  sun4u Netra T1 200 
(UltraSPARC-IIe 500MHz)
System clock frequency: 100 MHz
Memory size: 2048 Megabytes

========================= CPUs ========================
                     Run   Ecache   CPU    CPU
Brd  CPU   Module   MHz     MB    Impl.   Mask
---  ---  -------  -----  ------  ------  ----
  0     0     0      500     0.2   13       1.4


========================= IO Cards ========================
      Bus#  Freq
Brd  Type  MHz   Slot  Name                              Model
---  ----  ----  ----  -------------------------------- 
----------------------
  0   PCI-1  33    12   ebus 

  0   PCI-1  33     3   pmu-pci10b9,7101 

  0   PCI-1  33     3   lomp 

  0   PCI-1  33     7   isa 

  0   PCI-1  33    12   network-pci108e,1101              SUNW,pci-eri 

  0   PCI-1  33    12   usb-pci108e,1103.1 

  0   PCI-1  33    13   ide-pci10b9,5229 

  0   PCI-1  33     5   network-pci108e,1101              SUNW,pci-eri 

  0   PCI-1  33     5   usb-pci108e,1103.1 

  0   PCI-2  33     8   scsi-glm                          Symbios,53C896 

  0   PCI-2  33     8   scsi-glm                          Symbios,53C896 

  0   PCI-2  33     5   raid-pci1095,7124        <--------------- 



No failures found in System
==========================#

.....................................................................
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
====================================================================
relevant section from prtconf -v

            raid (driver not attached)
                 Hardware properties:
                     name=''compatible'' type=string items=3
                         value=''pci1095,7124'' +
''pci1095,3124'' +
''pciclass,010400''

.....................................................................
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
====================================================================output from
prtdev.ksh script, from here
http://bolthole.com/solaris/HCL/


VendorID=0x1095, DeviceID=0x3124
Sub VendorID=0x1095, Sub DeviceID=0x7124
                 name:  ''raid''

Le 08/02/2011 07:10, Jerry Kemp a ?crit :
> As part of a small home project, I have purchased a SIL3124 hba in 
> hopes of attaching an external drive/drive enclosure via eSATA.
>
> The host in question is an old Sun Netra T1 currently running 
> OpenSolaris Nevada b130.
>
> The card in question is this Sil3124 card:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16816124003
>
> although I did not purchase it from Newegg. I specifically purchased 
> this card as I have seen specific reports of it working under 
> Solaris/OpenSolaris distro''s on several Solaris mailing lists.
I use a non-eSata version of this card under Solaris Express 11 for a 
boot mirrored ZFS pool. And another one for a Windows 7 machine that 
does backups of the server. Bios and drivers are available from the 
Silicon Image site, but nothing for Solaris.

-- 
?ditions de l''?ge d''Or ? Stanley G. Weinbaum
http://www.lulu.com/robert_soubie

On 08 February, 2011 - Robert Soubie sent me these 1,1K bytes:
> Le 08/02/2011 07:10, Jerry Kemp a ?crit :
>> As part of a small home project, I have purchased a SIL3124 hba in  
>> hopes of attaching an external drive/drive enclosure via eSATA.
>>
>> The host in question is an old Sun Netra T1 currently running  
>> OpenSolaris Nevada b130.
>>
>> The card in question is this Sil3124 card:
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16816124003
>>
>> although I did not purchase it from Newegg. I specifically purchased  
>> this card as I have seen specific reports of it working under  
>> Solaris/OpenSolaris distro''s on several Solaris mailing lists.
>
> I use a non-eSata version of this card under Solaris Express 11 for a  
> boot mirrored ZFS pool. And another one for a Windows 7 machine that  
> does backups of the server. Bios and drivers are available from the  
> Silicon Image site, but nothing for Solaris.
The problem itself is sparc vs x86 and firmware for the card. AFAIK,
there is no sata card with drivers for solaris sparc. Use a SAS card.

/Tomas
-- 
Tomas ?gren, stric at acc.umu.se, http://www.acc.umu.se/~stric/
|- Student at Computing Science, University of Ume?
`- Sysadmin at {cs,acc}.umu.se

On 2/8/2011 2:17 AM, Tomas ?gren wrote:
> On 08 February, 2011 - Robert Soubie sent me these 1,1K bytes:
>
>> Le 08/02/2011 07:10, Jerry Kemp a ?crit :
>>> As part of a small home project, I have purchased a SIL3124 hba in
>>> hopes of attaching an external drive/drive enclosure via eSATA.
>>>
>>> The host in question is an old Sun Netra T1 currently running
>>> OpenSolaris Nevada b130.
>>>
>>> The card in question is this Sil3124 card:
>>>
>>> http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16816124003
>>>
>>> although I did not purchase it from Newegg. I specifically
purchased
>>> this card as I have seen specific reports of it working under
>>> Solaris/OpenSolaris distro''s on several Solaris mailing
lists.
>> I use a non-eSata version of this card under Solaris Express 11 for a
>> boot mirrored ZFS pool. And another one for a Windows 7 machine that
>> does backups of the server. Bios and drivers are available from the
>> Silicon Image site, but nothing for Solaris.
> The problem itself is sparc vs x86 and firmware for the card. AFAIK,
> there is no sata card with drivers for solaris sparc. Use a SAS card.
>
> /Tomas
Thomas is correct.  This is a hardware issue, not an OS driver one. In 
order to use a card with SPARC, its firmware must be OpenBoot-aware.  
Pretty much all consumer SATA cards only have PC BIOS firmware, as there 
is no market for sales to SPARC folks.

However, several of the low-end SAS cards ($100 or so) also have 
available OpenBoot firmware, in addition to PC BIOS firmware. In 
particular, the LSI1068 series-based HBAs are a good place to look.  
Note that you *might* have to flash the new OpenBoot firmware onto the 
card - cards don''t come with both PC-BIOS and OpenBoot firmware.  Be 
sure to check the OEM''s web site to make sure that the card is 
explicitly supported for SPARC, not just "Solaris".



-- 
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop:  usca22-123
Phone:  x17195
Santa Clara, CA

Thank you for the solid answer.

It now looks like I am now seeking a 32 bit SAS card that I can put into 
a Netra T1 or a V120.

Jerry


On 02/08/11 09:38, Erik Trimble wrote:

STUFF DELETED HERE
>
> Thomas is correct. This is a hardware issue, not an OS driver one. In
> order to use a card with SPARC, its firmware must be OpenBoot-aware.
> Pretty much all consumer SATA cards only have PC BIOS firmware, as there
> is no market for sales to SPARC folks.
>
> However, several of the low-end SAS cards ($100 or so) also have
> available OpenBoot firmware, in addition to PC BIOS firmware. In
> particular, the LSI1068 series-based HBAs are a good place to look. Note
> that you *might* have to flash the new OpenBoot firmware onto the card -
> cards don''t come with both PC-BIOS and OpenBoot firmware. Be sure
to
> check the OEM''s web site to make sure that the card is explicitly
> supported for SPARC, not just "Solaris".
>
>
>