Adaptec AACRaid series

1. Vendor information

Adaptec (​http://www.adaptec.com) card are usually well supported on Linux.
Adaptec supports Linux and provide an opensource kernel driver which has been part of Linux for ages

2. Linux kernel drivers

There is only one drivers to handle all cards:

Driver	Supported cards
aacraid	All Adaptec AACRaid cards

You should not expect any problems with theses drivers which are known to be mature and stable.
We don't know any current Linux distrubtion which miss theses drivers so no additional step should be required to get it working.

Some lspci -nn output examples:

• 02:01.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Adaptec AAC-RAID ![9005:0285] (rev 01)
• 04:08.1 RAID bus controller [0104]: Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller 3/Di [1028:000a] (rev 01)

3. Management and reporting tools

No opensource tools for aacraid cards currently exist. However, Adaptec provides a proprietary utility for x86 and x86_64 linux systems.

3.1. arcconf

arcconf is a command line tool to manage and monitor aacraid cards.
Latest version is 5.20.17414, available in Adaptec storage manager applications package.

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3.1.1. Quickstart guide for arcconf

Get first controller config and status

server:~# arcconf GETCONFIG 1
Controllers found: 1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Controller information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
   Controller Status                        : Optimal
   Channel description                      : SCSI
   Controller Model                         : PERC 3/Di
[...]
   BIOS                                     : 2.8-0 (6089)
   Firmware                                 : 2.8-0 (6089)
   Driver                                   : 1.1-4 (9999)
   Boot Flash                               : 0.0-0 (0)
[...]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Logical device information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Logical device number 1
   Logical device name                      : Noname
   RAID level                               : 5
   Status of logical device                 : Optimal
   Size                                     : 139997 MB
   Stripe-unit size                         : 64 KB
   Write-cache mode                         : Not supported
   Partitioned                              : Yes
   Protected by Hot-Spare                   : No
   Bootable                                 : Yes
   Failed stripes                           : No
[...]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Physical Device information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
   Channel #0:
      Transfer Speed                        : Ultra160
      Initiator at SCSI ID 7
      Device #0
         Device is a Hard drive
         State                              : Online
         Supported                          : Yes
         Transfer Speed                     : Ultra160
         Reported Channel,Device            : 0,0
         Vendor                             : MAXTOR
         Model                              : ATLASU320_73_SCA
         Firmware                           : B120
         Serial number                      : XXX
         Size                               : 70007 MB
         Write Cache                        : Unknown
         FRU                                : None
         S.M.A.R.T.                         : No
[...]

This command will report all important informations.
However, if you want to see (in example) array rebuild status you will have to run:

server:~# arcconf GETSTATUS 1
Controllers found: 1
   Current operation              : None

Command completed successfully.

3.2. afacli & aaccli

Theses tools are deprecated in favour of arcconf (see above).

3.3. aacraid-status

aacraid-status is a package I wrote by myself. It includes a python wrapper around arcconf command and an initscript which daemonize the launch of the wrapper.
It also handles failure detection and report it by mail and syslog. It also handle unexpected output changes and reminders until the status is fine again.

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Output example:

server:~# aacraid-status
-- Controller informations --
-- ID | Model | Status
c0 | PERC 3/Di | Optimal

-- Arrays informations --
-- ID | Type | Size | Status | Task | Progress
c0u1 | RAID5 | 139G | Optimal

-- Disks informations
-- ID | Model | Status
c0u1d2 | MAXTOR ATLASU320_73_SCA | Online
c0u1d1 | MAXTOR ATLASU320_73_SCA | Online
c0u1d0 | MAXTOR ATLASU320_73_SCA | Online

3.4. Adaptec Storage Manager

Adaptec Storage Manager is a graphical software based upon Java which can be used to manage localy or remotely an AACRaid card.

It has been splitted in three packages.
If you plan to monitor your own server from a local X window server, install adaptec-storage-manager-gui.
For a remote use, install adaptec-storage-manager-agent on the server and adaptec-storage-manager-gui on the client. You can of course manage several servers remotly from the same client.

I haven't used it much so I won't say more about the mail notification and tasks scheduler. Anyway, it looks powerfull and you should have a look.

Here are some screenshots:

Local server main screen

Remotely managed server notifications configuration screen =

4. BIOS upgrade from a Linux system

Theses controllers can be updated using arcconf.

I will write a howto soon, as I need to update a 4800SAS card at work. Stay tuned!

Off course, a reboot is needed after upgrading the BIOS.