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;
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.
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.
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.
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.