HP MSR Encryption Accelerators - Manual (Page 22)

Software installation 22
If the output shows that the device is running in Minimal mode, download the latest firmware from the HP
website ( http://www.hp.com/support ), and then use the HP IO Accelerator Management Tool application
or the "fio-update-iodrive (on page 49 )" utility to upgrade the firmware.
CAUTION: Upgrade Path
• Do not attempt to downgrade the firmware on any IO Accelerator device.
• You must follow a specific upgrade path when upgrading an IO Accelerator device.
• When installing a new IO Accelerator device along with existing devices, you must upgrade
all of the existing devices to the latest available versions of the firmware before installing the
new devices.
• Consult the release notes for this IO Accelerator release before upgrading IO Accelerator
devices.
IMPORTANT: The IO Accelerator device might have a minimum firmware label affixed (for
example, "MIN FW: XXXXXX"). This label indicates the minimum version of the firmware that is
compatible with your device.
Enabling PCIe power
For PCIe IO Accelerators, if you have installed any dual IO Accelerator devices, such as the HP ioDrive2
Duo, then the device might require additional power than the minimum 25 W provided by PCIe Gen2 slots
to properly function.
For instructions on enabling the device to draw additional power from the PCIe slots, see "Enabling PCIe
power override (on page 36 )."
Using the device as swap
To safely use the IO Accelerator as swap space, you must pass the swap_mode=1 kernel module parameter.
To pass this parameter, add the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/iomemory_vsl file:
options iomemory_vsl preallocate_memory=1072,4997,6710,10345
where 1072,4997,6710,10345 are serial numbers obtained from the fio-status utility. Be sure to use
serial numbers for the IO Accelerator modules and not the adapter.
A 4K sector size format is required for swap. This format reduces the driver memory footprint.
CAUTION: You must have 400MB of free RAM per 80GB of IO Accelerator capacity (formatted
to 4KB block size) to enable the IO Accelerator with pre-allocation enabled for swap. Attaching
an IO Accelerator with pre-allocation enabled and insufficient RAM might result in the loss of user
processes and system instability.
IMPORTANT: During the loading of the IO Accelerator, the preallocate_memory parameter
is recognized and the memory allocates when the specific device is attached.
Using the Logical Volume Manager
If you add the IO Accelerator as a supported type, the LVM volume group management application handles
mass storage devices like the IO Accelerator. To use the LVM:
1. Locate the /etc/lvm/lvm.conf configuration file.