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Description

This document addresses the identification of supported Sun[TM] SPARC or x64 platform disk firmware for Solaris[TM], Linux and Windows.This document also details how to check for known disk issues.

Symptoms

Checking for supported disk firmware revision and known issues.

Steps to Follow

Always perform disk management commands as an administration user such as root or UID0 in Solaris/Linux or as Administrator in Windows.

CHECKING FIRMWARE REVISION, SOLARIS:

Execute the following command to provide you with the firmware revision of your disks:

# /usr/sbin/iostat -En

The resulting output will be similar to the following for each storage media item installed on your platform. Output will very depending on platform type and configuration:

c0t10d0 Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: SEAGATE  Product: ST336607LSUN36G
Revision: 0207 Serial No: 0248A0GKBM
Size: 36.42GB <36420075008 bytes>
Illegal Request: 0 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0

The Revision: field indicates the firmware revision of the attached storage device if applicable.

The Product field contains the drive manufacturers type/code.

Some logical devices such as a configured RAID array or controller do not report a revision number or report an arbitrary number. This number is provided for compatibility and may be ignored.

If you are using SATA disks on Solaris 10 Update 3 or lower, the media devices may not be represented correctly in the iostat output until you update to Solaris 10 Update 4 or above. This is due to Solaris using a legacy ATA driver rather than the new SATA driver.

CHECKING FIRMWARE REVISION, LINUX:

Execute the following command to provide you with the firmware revision of your disks:

# /bin/cat /proc/scsi/scsi

The resulting output will be similar to the following for each storage media item installed on your platform. Output will very depending on platform type and configuration:

Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: SEAGATE  Model: ST373207LC       Rev: 0207
Type:   Direct-Access                    ANSI SCSI revision: 03

The Rev: field indicates the firmware revision of the attached storage device if applicable.

The Vendor: field contains the drive manufacturers type/code.

Some logical devices such as a configured RAID array or controller do not report a revision number or report an arbitrary number. This number is provided for compatibility and may be ignored.

For IDE/PATA storage devices such as CD-ROM's and IDE disks, an extra package currently needs to be installed to correctly identify the firmware revision under Linux.
Download, compile and install "smartmontools" from your preferred distributions archive or from http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

Execute the following command to identify the firmware revision of your optical or hard disk where hdX is the port your ATA or PATA device is connected to, for example hda, hdb, hdc or hdd:

# smartctl -i /dev/hdX
Device Model:     IC35L120AVV7-0
Serial Number:    VNVD02G4G3R72G
Firmware Version: V24OA63A
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   6
ATA Standard is:  ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

The Firmware Version: field indicates the firmware revision of the attached storage device if applicable.

The Device Model: field contains the drive manufacturers type/code.

Some logical devices such as a configured RAID array or controller do not report a revision number or report an arbitrary number. This number is provided for compatibility and may be ignored.

CHECKING FIRMWARE REVISION, WINDOWS:

The current firmware version may be obtained by performing the following actions within the Windows interface or remote desktop:

1. Click on the "Start or Windows" button on the start bar.

2. Select "Run" from the menu that appears.

3. Type "msinfo32" into dialog box click the "Ok" button.

4. Select "Components" in the window that appears.

5. Select the "CD-ROM" sub-component to browse a CD-ROM or select the "Storage" sub-component then the "IDE" sub-component for a disk.
   The CD-ROM and disk firmware will be listed in the field "PNP Device ID" and is usually separated by a series of under bars "0207".

CHECKING FIRMWARE REVISIONS UNDER RAID CONTROL, ALL:

The nature of a hardware RAID controller is to hide direct disk access and create a pseudo volume for mount/read/write access.
This unfortunately has the effect of hiding disk vendor information including firmware revisions.

If a disk is under the control of a hardware RAID device then there are a number of options available to view disk hardware.

The Sun preferred option is to reboot the platform and enter the system BIOS's disk setup utility. This option is always available and does not require any additional software to be installed.

• For Nvidia RAID, press the <F10> when prompted during the initial stages of a reboot

• For LSI Platform RAID, press <CTRL><C> when prompted during the initial stages of a reboot

• For LSI MegaRAID, press <CTRL><M> when prompted during the initial stages of a reboot

• For Adaptec RAID (including Sun STK SAS HBAs), press <CTRL><A> when prompted during the initial stages of a reboot

If installation of additional software is an available option then a number of packages are available to view RAID array disk configurations from the RAID controller vendors download sites:

• For Nvidia RAID, download and install Nvidia Media Shield

• For LSI RAID, download and install LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager

• For Adaptec RAID (including Sun STK SAS HBAs), download and install Sun StorageTek RAID Manager (StorMan)

Note: Sun may supply the appropriate Storage manager packages for platform integrated/onboard RAID controllers, or RAID Host Bus Adapter cards purchased with the system. Check the Tools & Drivers disc that shipped with the system, or the Sun download pages for the product.

An alternative option is to download and install "smartmontools" from your preferred distributions archive or from http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/, if available for your operating system.

As this is a third party package, please refer to the documentation distributed with the package.

CHECKING FOR KNOWN ISSUES, ALL:

Searching the Sun Sunsolve database is required to find firmware issues and updates for your particular optical or hard disk drive if applicable.
Login to Sunsolve and enter the Product type previously found in the Product/Vendor/Device Model output, for example ST336607LSUN36G and then select "Search".
Once your search results are return, you then have the option of further filtering your search by entering the firmware revision of your optical or hard disk drive, for example "0207".
If an issue exists for your disk revision, a "Bug Report" or "Change Request" will contain details of the problem and any pending fixes.

It is important to note that many Sun products operate a version of the original manufacturers firmware. This is a tested and supported release.
Third party companies often offer firmware downloads on their web sites.
Before considering an update, seek assistance from a Sun service representative about obtaining and installing third party firmware as this may invalidate your contract.

Internal Comments
This document contains normalized content and is managed by the the Domain Lead(s) of the respective domains. To notify content owners of a knowledge gap contained in this document, and/or prior to updating this document, please contact the domain engineers that are managing this document via the "Document Feedback" alias(es) listed below:

Normalization team alias: tsc-emea-x64@sun.com

x64, normalized, linux, solaris, windows, firmware, RAID
Previously Published As
91496

Change History
Date: 2007-12-20
User Name: 31620
Action: Approved
Comment: Published using interim normalization rules supplied by the Normalization Program Team (circa mid-December 2007)



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