Re: additional information on "cciss" device support?

See comments below

Jeff
| 
| However, these seem to leave out a lot of details on how the CCISS support
| works.  Am I missing some other documentation on the CCISS support that I
| should be looking at?

[JWW> ] The following is rather dated... but
Compaq Command Interface for SCSI-3 Support

CCISS Interface Specification http://sourceforge.net/projects/cciss/files/CCISS%20Interface%20Specification/CISS%20Interface%20Specification%20May%202008/OpenCISS_Specification.pdf/download


Much newer info can be found in the source code on sourceforge
The source code for both the hpsa scsi port (newer controllers w/newer OS releases) and the cciss block layer driver can be found on sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cciss/files/


| 
| Some examples of things that have come up:
| 
|  * how do the drives get assigned to the "N" index used in the "-d
|    cciss,N" option?  (They don't show up in the same order as the
|    hpacucli utility uses....)
[JWW> ] N index also does not come up in the same order as device enumeration order

I match the devices using the drive serial number that is at the top of the smart output....
(That same S/N is available with hpacucli / hpssacli... BTW: hpssacli replaced hpacucli going on 2 years ago :-)

| 
|  * When I use "-d sat" on an USB bridge, the output of "smartctl -a"
|    looks essentially the same as what I get from a directly-connected SATA
|    drive... but the output from a "-d cciss,0" command is much shorter
|    (even when the drive in question is a SATA drive).  What controls the
|    information included in the output, and would it matter what Linux
|    kernel version I'm running, etc.  (Is there any way to view the
|    SMART Attributes table, for example?)
[JWW> ] Did you use EXACT same drive behind the USB bridge as you did behind a Smart Array ?
(not the same model, but the exact same drive)

The smart information available is VERY dependent on the drive model and the firmware it has on it.

| 
|  * The Supported_RAID-Controllers wiki page lists the device file to use
|    under Linux as "/dev/sdX", but on our systems the actual device is
|    /dev/cciss/sXdX.  Is this an outright mistake (copied from the line
|    for another device type?) on the wiki page, or a change between Linux
|    versions or something along those lines?
[JWW> ] Depending on which Smart Array and which OS / Version, the controller will be supported by
the cciss [ block layer] or hpsa driver [ scsi port].

See reference above to sourceforge on where the source code is.

For cciss driver, the entries are in the /dev/cciss/cXdYsZ (you forgot a controller number cX, starting with 0 and dY is the Drive Array number)

Between that I have not done a cciss driver [been using hpsa] nor partitions or multiple logical drives per array, for more than 2 years, I could be wrong on what the sZ means, but I "think" the sZ gets added when you create more than one partition or logical drive per array but could be wrong... I don't recall the sZ in my usage.
| 
| 
| Thanks.
| 
| 						Nathan
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