IBM

My 285 came with a Ultra320 SCSI disk drive 4-pack backplane. 8 drives would require a 2nd backplane.
This is a good reference to find out what comes with power5s:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgece ... system.htm
Some models come with 6-pack backplanes. You will also find number of pin information.

For Power6 you may want to check here to find what storage options are standard: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgece ... /arecs.pdf
According to that, it says drives are all 80 pin for Power6.

I managed to add non-IBM branded/firmware hard drives and AIX was fine with it.

YAY ! Got the p520 from ebay !

Thanks for the parts reference. Is the compatibility strictly enforced by the firmware ? For example - will 53P3232 2GB ram sticks - which are listed as p570 parts - work in my p520 ? They have the same specs (type & speed).

Which p520? Give the model #.

Sorry. 9111-520
The parts reference page lists only those as compatible:


CCIN - description - part number
==========================================
309B - 256 MB DDR1 memory DIMM, 266 MHz - 12R9283, 53P3222
30AC - 4 GB DDR1 memory DIMM, 266 MHz - 12R9276, 16R0711
30D2 - 512 MB DDR1 memory DIMM, 266 MHz - 12R9238, 00P5767
30D3 - 1 GB DDR1 memory DIMM, 266 MHz - 12R8614, 00P5769
30D5 - 2 GB DDR1 memory DIMM, 266 MHz - 12R9257, 00P5773

Thanks.

Yes, the p570 stuff should work.

Yay !
Now - are those disk trays good ?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/282061395980
http://www.ebay.com/itm/272084758372

They have a SCA80 connector for the HDD. Are those standard or there are multiple incompatible types of SCSI trays ?
Thanks.

I don't know the backplane you're connecting it to but those look like a standard pSeries drive tray. You may or may not need to get a different interposer board. Those are inexpensive enough you could buy one and see.

However, for the record, my POWER6 p520 uses SAS for its RAID (with the RAID enablement card), not parallel SCSI.

My Power5 9111-520 is supposed to have:
"Disk backplane (DB) 80P4611"
Which is a SCSI u320 4 disk backplane

If i want to add another 4 disk backplane, do i need an extra scsi card + cable ? And what's the difference between the normal and Mirroring disk backplanes ?

Do you know any "magic IBM codes" that could use to search eBay for interposer boards ?

Thanks a lot.

That I don't know, I've only used the SAS backplanes on "recent" kit. However, that interposer does look like it has the right connector on the drive side, at least. I believe the 9111-520 will only allow two backplanes if you have an external SCSI port (I think the -550 can take them both internal).

The mirroring backplane is like it says; it mirrors writes to the primary backplane. I've never used one of these, however, so I can't really advise you there. My POWER6 just uses conventional RAID 5.

See https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgece ... system.htm for most of the options and FCs.

Oh yeah

HSCL100C The PowerVM Standard Edition activation code has been accepted by the managed system. Multiple logical partitions, Micro-Partitioning, and Virtual I/O Server capabilities have been enabled.

Strange thing is that the CoD IBM page shows 2 VET codes for my server, but the HMC (long live VirtualBox) accepted only one of them.

Question - With VIOS & LPARs - if i want to play with HACMP, can i "share" a single virtual disk to two LPARs using VIOS or do i need to have an external SCSI disk connected to two SCSI ports ?

I *think* you can share the vdisk, but tbh, I've never set up a system like that. At worst it will just refuse to do so, so there's no harm in trying.

This thread reminded me that I could look up the Cod features for ebay machines where serials are provided - my credit card is sore now. But a machine with vet is coming.

Dearest AIX gurus.

I have the latest version of HMCv7 running (v8 no longer supports p5 machines)
I have the latest firmware loaded on the 520
I have VIOS install media: v2.1 and latest v2.2
I have AIX install media 5.3, 6.1 & 7.1
Added a new DASD backplane, i have 4 HDDs (2 on each scsi bus)
16 Gb of RAM, full of extra PCI cards
Network ports cabled, HMC connected, virtualization license added.

What the heck do i do now ?

I tried to install VIOs but it did not let me select the HDDs to use - so i had to give the LPAR access to all the hardware (that checkbox).
Then tried to add a AIX lpar but it refuses to start.
What the hell is a service partition, why do i need it and why i cannot delete-it ?
How do i change stuff on a LPAR (ram, CPUs) from the HMC GUI without removing it and re-adding it ?
How do i get root shell access to VIOs and HMC ?

I don't ming being told to RTFM as long as a link to TFM is provided.

Thanks a lot

Then tried to add a AIX lpar but it refuses to start.

What do you mean, refuses to start?