Marvell WAM – Fast, cheap and sadly … useless

[SebastianMWS]

Greetings all,

Been a while since my last post, with a modest attempt to contribute some hard to find information about IBM LSI SAS3444E HBA, in the long ongoing thread ”LSI RAID Controller - HBA Equivalency Mapping”.

This time around I’m seeking information and assistance, regarding one of the most illusive pieces of hardware I ever came across – the infamous Marvell WAM, a flash based accelerator card. It’s been mentioned briefly a couple of times in a handful of short lived STH forum threads. Rather than bumping those old and “cold” threads, I reckoned I might try from a scratch with a new thread.

The reason for a meager interest for this card, as some of you are well aware of, is Marvell’s informational concrete wall called NDA – a Non Disclosure Agreement. You cannot sign it unless you’re among the few privileged, who spend enough for Marvell’s products to earn the honours, to sign this agreement and get the access to proper documentation and software – SDK kits, drivers, utilities etc. For anyone else, us the “commoners” who were naïve enough to purchase WAM card in the spur of the moment, detailed information and drivers are off limits.

The following is a brief report about how far I got without having a proper driver;

• Installed the card on a consumer grade motherboard (white box with a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), just to see if there’s any sign of life coming from it, like config/setup prompt, info displayed during boot splash screens, etc. Status LEDs on the back of the card were all the activity I got from the card. It was otherwise completely invisible to system, not even detected by BIOS;
  
  
• Installed WAM in a testbed server at work – HP Proliant DL380 G5 (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS). The card was detected by BIOS (“PCI Devices: RAID Mass Storage Controller”), but there’s no info about it displayed during boot.
  
  
• I can see the card with ‘lspci –vv’ command …

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0e:00.0 RAID bus controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 8180 (rev a1)

Subsystem: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 11ab
…
…
Capabilities: <access denied>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

… but that’s about it. There’s no kernel module loaded for it, so it just sits in there and heats up the interior of server.

• Unlike LED indications on the back of the card, as observed during initial install in a white box (one green LED on, while system was idling, upon Power Off both LEDs flashing green), the HP Proliant environment causes a different behaviour or WAN’s status LEDs - amber and green glow steady during boot, after a while only amber LED is on. Upon Power Off there’s no flashing patter of two green LEDs … must be some kind of faulty state.

To resume the essence of this post;

If anyone has the means to assist, either with a source code for WAM Linux driver (Ububtu 12.04 or 14.04), or has information about where to get it (without a signed NDA), I would be extremely grateful for your assistance.

Greetings,

Sebastian

P.S.: You can PM me if that's what you'd prefer, or go public on STH ... depends on nature of info you are willing to share.

 

[Deci]

Sounds like the troubles i ran into with a second hand fusion iodrive2 card, they wouldnt take a bar of supplying firmware or drivers even when money was offered as i wasnt the original buyer of the card, i ended up managing to find someone who had a current support contract for their cards and was able to get me the files but it was all pure luck that i ended up getting them.

Best suggestion is to just get it out there in as many places as you can and see if someone can/is willing to help you out.

 

[SebastianMWS]

Sounds like the troubles i ran into with a second hand fusion iodrive2 card, they wouldnt take a bar of supplying firmware or drivers even when money was offered as i wasnt the original buyer of the card, i ended up managing to find someone who had a current support contract for their cards and was able to get me the files but it was all pure luck that i ended up getting them.

Best suggestion is to just get it out there in as many places as you can and see if someone can/is willing to help you out.

Thank you

Sounds like the troubles i ran into with a second hand fusion iodrive2 card, they wouldnt take a bar of supplying firmware or drivers even when money was offered as i wasnt the original buyer of the card, i ended up managing to find someone who had a current support contract for their cards and was able to get me the files but it was all pure luck that i ended up getting them.

Best suggestion is to just get it out there in as many places as you can and see if someone can/is willing to help you out.

Thank you Deci,

That's exactly what I was hoping for - to hear from someone here on STH, who "bit the bullet" and somehow got into position to sign the NDA. I'd even pay for the Linux source code, if there was no other option (not a fortune, as it's for private use, but still...). To put it into perspective, just how rigid Marvell is towards the "little customers"; a while ago I sent a request for some basic specs of WAM card - thermal/air flow requirements, type of ECC used, etc. Their first question was ..."Do you have an NDA signed ?".

My big hope was a thread posted not long ago, started by Chuntzu (this thread), who seems to be the person on this planet (that I'm aware of), who got this card running in a non proprietary system (like Dell DR Series and similar). I still hope I might hear from this guy, though hopes are dwindling fast (PMed him, nothing but echo came back...).

I've got an impression that Marvell's NDA must be quite a fearsome "bogeyman". I somehow managed to sniff out the personal e-mail address (university e-mail account) of a contracted ex-Marvell engineer (responsible for testing WAM on Linux platform), and guess what ... here too nothing but echo as a reply.

Oh well, you know what they say - "Hope is the last to die".

Greetings,

Sebastian

 

[SebastianMWS]

Few more thoughts folks, before this thread gets freezing cold, as all other threads did, here on STH and everywhere else on the web, with a subject pertaining Marvell WAM card;

I just stumbled upon this very interesting writing, about the corporate invention called NDA (in general, not just Marvell's take). I highly recommend this article, at least to anyone who embraced Liinux, as well as reading the debate that follows on lwn.net website.

Link: Device drivers and non-disclosure agreements [LWN.net]

It sure made think long and hard, to the point that I changed my mind completely, about paying for the source code for WAM Linux source code, even if there was a chance to do it. It's one thing if a software company decides not to offer their sophisticated 3D CAD software for free (made for Linux platform), but quite another if a hardware manufacturer has zero respect and consideration toward »insignificant individuals« (end-users), who purchased their product but are denied of any kind of support. True, I should have researched the existence of publicly available Linux driver, or the prospect of out-of-the-box Linux support for the WAM card, but that's not the topic of my ramblings here.

If I want to be serious about Linux and what it stands for, which is a lot more than »just« a free software and savings this brings along, then I suppose I kind of owe it to the spirit of Linux community, not to encourage corporate nonsense like NDAs are, and let their sales offices know about it. It goes without saying – it's hard to make a difference on our own, even harder as we often think that nobody's following our thoughts and actions.

Sorry folks, completely non-technical stuff, but hopefully to someone's benefit. Perhaps the biggest frustration of all, is that I'm about to throw a $100 card in a trash can, while there are millions around who consider themselves lucky, if they can eat once a day, every day (maybe).

Sebastian

 

[Chuntzu]

Well as I tried one last time to get this card working I stumbled across this post and noticed my screen name in it... I said to myself "what pm?". So just took a look back at my PMs and boom there it was! Sorry about that the lack of reaponse, but in the end we are at the same point, tossing this thing in the trash. :-(

 

[SebastianMWS]

Well as I tried one last time to get this card working I stumbled across this post and noticed my screen name in it... I said to myself "what pm?". So just took a look back at my PMs and boom there it was! Sorry about that the lack of reaponse, but in the end we are at the same point, tossing this thing in the trash. :-(

Hello "Chuntzu" (and all other STH members),

My turn to apologize, for what seems like a 'Quid pro quo' type of reaction, while in fact I simply gave up and quit following the thread. I suppose I must have misunderstood your posts regarding WAM card, as I had an impression you got it working. Nevermind, unlike yourself I'm keeping the darn thing, just to spite and in case a miracle happens, quite unexpectedly, sometime in the future.

Kind regards,

Sebastian

 

[KSPINSIDE]

Hey,

I know this is an old thread, but if anyone happens to have any of these Marvel cards left, I might be interested in scooping them up.
Need to replace some dead units...

 

[jonessex]

Hey,

I know this is an old thread, but if anyone happens to have any of these Marvel cards left, I might be interested in scooping them up.
Need to replace some dead units...

I have one I've literally just pulled out of an old R510. Say 20 bucks plus postage?

 

[KSPINSIDE]

I have one I've literally just pulled out of an old R510. Say 20 bucks plus postage?

If it physically works, I'll give you 100 + shipping. 20 is too little