Sun Microsystems Netra CP32x0 - Manual (Page 46)

3-2 Netra CP32x0 SAS Storage Advanced Rear Transition Module HD User’s Guide • January 2009
3.1 RAID Support
The LSISAS1068e controller supports the Integrated RAID hardware solution, which
is a highly integrated, low-cost RAID solution. It is designed for systems requiring
redundancy and high availability, but not requiring a full-featured RAID
implementation.
Integrated RAID includes Integrated Mirroring (IM or RAID 1), Integrated Mirroring
Extended (IME), and Integrated Striping (IS or RAID 0) technology. Integrated RAID
is OS independent, easy to install and configure, and does not require a special
driver. A RAID Volume is seen as a single drive by the host BIOS and OS.
The LSISAS1068e controller is based on the Fusion-MPT (Message Passing
Technology) architecture. The Fusion-MPT architecture requires only a thin device
driver that is independent of the I/O bus. LSI Logic provides the device drivers for
various operating environments.
3.2 SAS BIOS Overview
The SAS BIOS is the bootable ROM code that manages SAS hardware resources. It is
specific to a family of LSI Logic Fusion-MPT SAS controllers or processors. The
Fusion-MPT SAS BIOS integrates with a standard system BIOS, extending the
standard disk service routine provided through INT13h.
During the boot time initialization, the SAS BIOS determines whether the system
BIOS has already installed other hard disks, such as an IDE drive. If such drives are
already installed, the SAS BIOS maps any SAS drives it finds behind these drives.
Otherwise, the SAS BIOS installs drives starting with the system boot drive. In this
case, the system boots from a drive controlled by the SAS BIOS.
The Fusion-MPT SAS BIOS features include:
■ Configuration for up to 256 adapters; any four can be chosen for INT13 (bootrom)
support
■ Support for Message Passing Technology (MPT)
■ Support for LSI53C1064 devices
■ Support for SAS devices
■ Support for Integrated RAID initialization (with proper firmware)