IBM XSERIES 235 - RAID 5i - INSTALLING SOLARIS 10 1

[andythec]

Hello,

I have an IBM xSeries (235) eserver, with the following setup :
DUAL (2x) Intel Xeon 2.4Ghz CPUs
512 Meg of ECC DDR Memory
6 x 18.2Gig Hard Drive
IBM ServeRAID 5I RAID

The server raid software detects that the drives are setup as Raid 5.

I am trying to install Solaris 10, however the hard drives are not detected on install.

Is this because Solaris 10 does not support IBM Serveraid 5i ?

Does anyone know of a solution to overcome this problem ? Such as a downloadable driver, or even changing the Raid Controller card ?

Any help will be gratefully received and the results/outcome documented here.

Many thanks
Andy

 

[goombawaho]

From this, it appears that you only have a choice of SUSE or Redhat for Linux flavors.

http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/supp...ocdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-62462&brandind=5000008

You might have to ask this on a Linux/Solaris forum to see if there are any "hidden" drivers or work-arounds. I would doubt it though.

You could change the RAID card, but I don't know that any of the IBM cards support solaris OR that a third party card would necessarily work in an IBM.

 

[itsp1965]

Although Solaris 10 is supported on xSeries, you will have to actually ensure that your particular model supports it. Since the x235 is an older model, you'll most likely have issues with the driver support for the 6M

 

[victorv]

hi,
in ServeRAID CD, I have seen that also

• Caldera OpenLinux (versions 3.1 and 3.1.1)
• Red Hat Linux .....
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux .......
• SCO OpenServer 5.0.6a and 5.0.7
• SCO Open UNIX 8.0
• SCO UnixWare (versions 7.1.1 and 7.1.3)
• SCO UnitedLinux 4.0
• SuSE Linux • Turbolinux (versions 6.5 and 7.0)
• Turbolinux Enterprise Server 8

If you know that Solaris has "something to see" with the above OS, try to download ServeRAID Support CD, and follow
the instruction to extract a device driver to submin in a floppy during OS setup.

ServeRAID cards, are effectively Adaptec HW, re-branded,
reselled and supported by IBM. Also looking in Adaptec site
and looking for the one that "seems" the 5i, I have not found Adaptec support (device driver) for Solaris.

I believe that you have to change something:
OS, or Array Card.

Take in mind that the for IBM 235, the 5i is optional:
if you remove it, you have still access to disks,
using the LSI 1030 RAID1 adapter,
that is on the mother board.
By this you lose the capability to perform RAID5, but you can do 3xRAID1 logical volumes, that using an oculate partition on Unix, may continue to use the OS you prefere!

Always if you have the ability to have or find the LSI dd !
( maby you are lucky :

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-0547/gbrew?l=en&a=view

)
ciao
vittorio

 

[goombawaho]

Although Solaris 10 is supported on xSeries, you will have to actually ensure that your particular model supports it. Since the x235 is an older model, you'll most likely have issues with the driver support for the 6M"

Who mentioned a 6M controller???

 

[itsp1965]

LOL.. sorry guys reading another post in the same forum.
If you google Solaris support for ServerRAID, there is a project out there that is developing driver support for older serverRAID adapter which maybe worth a look

http://opensolaris.org/os/community/device_drivers/projects/serveraid/

 

[victorv]

hi,
itsp1965,
I don't know if,when,how,...
this sw will go on these cards, but this was not your task.

Yours was to discover infos; I too had looked for it
but without success.

Good work, star for you itsp1965 .

victor