ServeRAID M5025 SAS/SATA Controller

The ServeRAID M5025 SAS/SATA Controller for System x is the next-generation 6 Gbps SAS 2.0 external RAID controller. This adapter has two external mini-SAS connectors to control up to 240 devices and supports global and dedicated hot-spare drives. The ServeRAID M5025 controller delivers a full 6-Gbps SAS 2.0 RAID solution with the performance advantages of an extended cache and a standard battery backup unit. With the attachment of the ServeRAID M5000 Advanced Feature Key, the ServeRAID M5025 offers the option of RAID 6, RAID 60 and SED Encryption Key Management.

Figure 1 shows the ServeRAID M5025 with its standard battery backup unit.

Figure 1. ServeRAID M5025 SAS/SATA Controller

6 Gbps SAS 2.0 technology has been introduced to address data off-load bottlenecks in the direct-access storage environment. This new throughput doubles the transfer rate of the previous generation. SAS 2.0 is designed for backward compatibility with 3 Gbps SAS as well as with 3 Gbps SATA hard drives.
 

Table 1. Ordering part numbers and feature codes

The ServeRAID M5025 includes the following items:

• One ServeRAID M5025 adapter card with full-height (3U) bracket
• Low-profile (2U) bracket
• ServeRAID M5000 battery (attached)
• Battery Remote Mount Cable
• Documentation CD
• The IBM Important Notices Document

The ServeRAID M5025 adapter card has the following specifications:

• Eight external 6 Gbps SAS 2.0 ports implemented via two four-lane (x4) connectors
• Two mini-SAS external connectors (SFF-8088)
• 6 Gbps throughput per SAS port
• 800 MHz PowerPC processor with LSI SAS2108 6 Gbps RAID on Chip (ROC) controller
• PCI Express 2.0 x8 host interface
• 512 MB onboard data cache (DDR2 running at 800 MHz)
• Intelligent lithium polymer battery backup unit standard with up to 48 hours of data retention
• Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, and 50 (RAID 6 and 60 support with the optional M5000 Advanced Feature Key)
• Connects to
  • Up to 240 SAS or SATA drives
  • Up to 9 daisy-chained enclosures per port
• SAS and SATA drives are supported, but the mixing of SAS and SATA in the same RAID array is not supported
• Supports up to 64 logical volumes
• Supports LUN sizes up to 64 TB
• Configurable stripe size up to 1 MB
• Compliant with Disk Data Format (DDF) configuration on disk (COD)
• S.M.A.R.T. support

The key difference between the ServeRAID M5025 and M5015 RAID controllers is that the M5025 has two external SAS 2.0 x4 connectors and the M5015 has two internal SAS 2.0 x4 connectors.

The ServeRAID M5025 adapter card has the following features:

• Auto-resume on array rebuild or array reconstruction after loss of system power

  Auto-resume uses non-volatile NVRAM to save rebuild progress during a host reboot or power failure to automatically resume from the last checkpoint. Auto-resume will ensure data integrity is maintained through the process. The card supports a number of features that can be implemented without rebooting the server. Applications such as email and web server benefit from avoiding downtime during transition.

• Online Capacity Expansion

  Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) allows the capacity of a virtual disk to be expanded by adding new physical disks or making use of unused space on existing disks, without requiring a reboot.

• Online RAID Level Migration

  Online RAID Level Migration (also known as logical drive migration) provides the ability to migrate a virtual disk from any RAID level to any other RAID level without requiring a reboot. System availability and application functionality remain unaffected.

• Fast initialization for quick array setup
• Consistency check for background data integrity

  Consistency Check verifies that all stripes in a virtual disk with a redundant RAID level are consistent. For RAID 1, the consistency check will mirror data when an inconsistent stripe is detected. For RAID 5 or RAID 6, the consistency check will recreate the parity from the peer disks. Consistency checks can be scheduled to take place periodically.

• Extensive online configuration options: advanced monitoring and event notification

  Management tools provide convenience for configuration of logical volumes and alerts when errors have occurred or are about to occur.

• Patrol Read for media scanning and repairing

  Patrol read is a background sentry service designed to proactively discover and correct media defects (bad sectors) that arise normally as a disk drive ages. The service issues a series of verify commands and if a bad block is discovered, the card's firmware will use RAID algorithms to recreate the missing data and remap the sector to a good sector. The task is interruptible based on controller activity and host operations. The firmware also provides an interface where the patrol read task can be initiated, set up for continuous operation, and terminated from a management application. Patrol read can be activated by manual command or automatically.

• Global and dedicated Hot Spare with Revertible Hot Spare support:

  A hot spare rebuilds data from all virtual disks within the disk group in which it is configured. ServeRAID provides the ability to define a physical disk as a hot spare to replace a failed drive. Hot spares can be configured as either global or dedicated. A global hot spare allows any physical drive to be designated as a hot spare. A dedicated hot spare will allow the user to assign a hot spare drive to a particular array of the same drive type.

The ServeRAID M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key enables the following features:

• RAID levels 6 and 60
• LSI SafeStore: support for self-encrypting drive services:
  • Instant secure erase
  • Local key management

LSI SafeStore encryption services offer instant secure erase and local key management for self-encrypting drives. This technology represents a significant step forward in securing data on a disk drive from any unauthorized access or modification resulting from theft, loss, or repurposing of drives:

• Instant secure erase permanently removes data when repurposing or decommissioning SEDs.
• SafeStore local key management provides the necessary management and protection of SEDs using a simple pass phrase, security key identifier, and security key file that can be set and applied to all SEDs assigned to a ServeRAID adapter. This removes the complexity of managing each SED’s unique encryption key, and essentially relieves the administrator from most of the daily tasks of securing data.

Note: To use the SED services of the ServeRAID M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key, you must use self-encrypting drives as listed in "Supported disk drives" below.

Self-encrypting drives are based on a new technology that helps prevent data from being accessed without authorization. These drives adhere to the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Enterprise Security Subsystem Class specification and are National Security Agency qualified to provide government-grade encryption. With self-encrypting drives (SEDs), if a drive is removed from its storage system or the server that it is housed in, the data on that drive is encrypted and useless to anyone who attempts to access it without the appropriate security authorization.

Figure 2 shows the ServeRAID M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key.

Figure 2. ServeRAID M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key

The ServeRAID M5025 adapter card is supported in the following environment:

• Temperature:
  • At 0-1000 m (0-3000 ft): 10-35° C (50-95° F)
  • At 1000-2100 m (3000-7000 ft): 10-32° C (50-90° F)
• Relative humidity: 20-80% (non-condensing)

One-year limited warranty. When installed on a System x server, these cards assume your system’s base warranty and any IBM ServicePac upgrade. Batteries are consumables and therefore are not covered under the warranty.
 

The ServeRAID M5025 adapter card is supported on the System x servers listed in Table 2.

Table 2. Supported System x servers (Part 1)

ServeRAID M5025 Controller	46M0830	N	N	Y	N	Y	N	N	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y

Table 2. Supported System x servers (Part 2)

ServeRAID M5025 Controller	N	Y	Y	N	N	N	N	Y	Y	N	Y	N	N	N	N	Y

See the IBM ServerProven website for the latest information about the adapters supported by each System x server type: http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/.

The ServeRAID M5025 controller supports connectivity to the external SAS expansion enclosures listed in Table 3.

Table 3. Supported expansion enclosures

* This refers the maximum number of enclosures supported connected to one ServeRAID M5025

The ServeRAID M5025 adapter card supports the following operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Web x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Web x86 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2 Premium Edition
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2 Standard Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for AMD64/EM64T
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for x86
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES for AMD64/EM64T
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES for x86
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 WS/HPC for AMD64/EM64T
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 WS/HPC for x86
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition with Xen
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server with Xen x64 Edition
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server x64 Edition
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 for AMD64/EM64T
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 for x86
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64/EM64T
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for x86
• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T
• VMware ESX 4.0
• VMware ESXi 4.0

See the IBM ServerProven website for the latest information about the specific versions and service packs supported: http://ibm.com/servers/eserver/serverproven/compat/us/. Click System x servers, then Disk controllers to see the support matrix. Click the check mark that is associated with the System x server in question to see the details of the operating system support.

For more information refer to the following documents:

• US Announcement Letter
  http://ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=dd&subtype=ca&&htmlfid=897/ENUS110-172
• US Announcement Letter for the M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key:
  http://ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=dd&subtype=ca&&htmlfid=897/ENUS109-739
• ServeRAID M5025 Quick Install Guide
  http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5086113
• ServeRAID M5025 Installation and User's Guide
  http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5086123
• System x RAID products home page:
  http://www.ibm.com/systems/storage/product/systemx/scsi_raid.html
• ServeRAID software matrix:
  http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=SERV-RAID