Re: DASD FC 4326 15k RPM in Model 270-2248 with 2763 controller and V5R1M0 - any chance? + IBM vs. Seagate disks? -- MIDRANGE-L

And even in the SAS world, the SAS disks for i have a different FC than the
ones for AIX/VIOS have they not? i believe the 512 / 522 byte x sector is
still an issue...
At least on the Power6 machine i recently configured on the SPT they had
different FCs...

Best Regards,

Roberto

PS: xSeries SAS disks work like a charm for VIOS and AIX even if they do
have a different FRU, wouldn't do it on a PROD machine but in my lab they
worked...

On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 5:27 PM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

AND before Sue catches me this is in the SCSI world.

In the POWER Systems SAS era all the new drives are the same for IBM i
and AIX and VIOS. They are NOT the same code as for SAN or xSeries world.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com
www.iInTheCloud.com

On 1/24/2014 2:29 PM, DrFranken wrote:

One more post for the archives.

IBM Sources their disks from multiple vendors so you may see Seagate
Hitachi, Quantum and others if you look at the Manufacturer part of the
label. That is not relevant to IBM i. The code that is loaded to the
controller for these drives is specifically for IBM i. The code is
'owned' by IBM and is unique to i. There are capabilities in there that
other drives do not have and these capabilities are leveraged by the
O/S. These drives ALSO report in with a Feature Code so that they can be
recognized and used. Without that no go.

SO you can go find an ''identical'' drive from the manufacturer and put
it into your power system. And it won't work because it doesn't have the
correct code and thus is not capable of doing the work. It also doesn't
have the correct FC so the server won't even try to use it.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com
www.iInTheCloud.com

On 1/24/2014 6:20 AM, Joerg M. Sigle wrote:

Hello all.

As I'm new on the list: I'm from Europe, happened to get an iSeries

Mod. 270-2248 with OS version V5R1. I've had only a bit of experience with
AS/400 some years ago, but am computer literate. I've already found helpful
information in this list - so thanks to David for running it, and to all
others for being there!

Now I've got a question:

Has anybody *tried* whether the Mod. 270-2248 would accept disks beyond

the FC 4319 / CCIN 6719?

Specifically, FC 4326 Seagate Model Number ST336753LC 35 GB 15k RPM

drive?

Or is it perfectly clear that this will not work?

I've seen some sources indicating V5R2 would be needed for that.
And even that an external tower with a new controller might be required.

I'm still asking because I've been offered a set of these drives.

As I understand it, an upgrade to V5R2 would probably not be feasible;
and an additional tower definitely.

[Naive question: Could one simply patch a file / or the firmware of the

disks, like the drive ID string - to make the machine accept them?]

Another related question: I was wondering about Hitachi Ultrastar 10k

RPM HUS... disks I've seen on ebay as Feature 4319. Does anyone know how
they compare to the Seagates, re. noise and (remaining) reliability?

After all, these appear to be 3-4 yrs younger. However, for IBM Hitachi

ICL35... I remember them having been called "notorious", and also having
seen one fail in an SGI Octane after hours, where two Seagates had survived
for years before. So I would probably prefer the Seagate disks right now.

Details:

My machine has early Mod. 270 hardware. Disk subsystem is 2763-6717;

i.e.:

2763-001 Controller
6717-074 x 4 HDUs; each ~ 8 GB, 3x Seagate, 1x IBM Ultrastar

The IBM disk is currently reported as "pre-fail" both in the iSeries,

and on a PC SCSI controller.

(Used that to make image backups of all 4 disks.)

That causes "NON-PROT" status for the other 3 disks; i.e. RAID

functionality is currently off.

Nevertheless, the machine works, has booted fine multiple times, and

uses all disks equally.

The one IBM disk is also *much* louder. It has a rather large grown

defects table, but even it's manufacturer supplied defects table had been
*much* larger than those of the Seagate drives for a start. I've also read
that the IBM iSeries drives were somewhat notorious for failing.

So I would like to replace the 4th disk - or upgrade them all.

I found that the 4317=6717 (8 GB, as is), 4318=6718 (18 GB) or

4319=6719 (35 GB) 10k RPM Disks

of Seagate origin *might* be the last ones that my V5R1 system would

accept.

The following PTFs are installed (among many others):

MF27488 (2036) Serviceability Updates for 6717, 6718,

6719.

11-28-01 Incorrout-Disk-HLIC 6717 6718 6719
I don't understand what the (2036) means in this PTF description.

This is the newest PTF installed:
MF27704 SPT: Incorrout-HLIC-94xx DISK
14-03-02 APAR corrigé: MA24666

Interestingly, one of the references below mentions:

MF27706 Changes to support downloading of new code for 67xx DASD.

I was wondering whether *that* might possibly enable the use of newer

disks as well?

Apart from the fact that this PTF is probably not on my machine yet.

References:

http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/201110/msg00297.html
"You will also get the type 6600 if you put in iSeries drives that are

not supported in the 270 frame (such as the 15K RPM units for example.) If
the FC of the drive isn't on the 'approved list' it's not usable."

http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200202/msg01580.html
(Info regarding the above PTFs)

http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh011402-story2.html

Thanks a lot for your reading time, and for any input of yours.
Even if you just say: "forget it" :-)

Kind regards! Joerg

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