Xyratex SBB enclosures and compatible controllers

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BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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If some of you did not know, Xyratex Technology Limited was a UK based storage solutions company founded by former IBM Data Storage Systems division managers who bought out IBM's HDD factory in Havant (Hampshire, UK) when IBM decided to quit that line of business. The managers paid pennies on the dollar and walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of yet unreleased IBM IP thanks to the in-house R&D facility being included into the buyout. Just in a few years Xyratex went public and became one of the leading OEM vendors of enterprise storage solutions. They were still doing pretty well when they got acquired by Seagate in 2014 for about $375M.

In early 2000s they also founded the Storage Bridge Bay Working Group which designed the specification for a storage platform where the "body" (chassis, power supplies and relatively dumb backplane) were separated from the "brains" (smart controllers supporting multiple data interfaces and advanced features). By the second iteration (SBB 2.0) the standard has become widely adopted.


Their most iconic product was the HB-1235/2435/2425 series of disk enclosures. Variations of the same chassis with different SBB compatible controllers have been sold as components of many storage systems by:

  • Compellent
  • EqualLogic
  • Racktop
  • LaCie
  • Microsoft
  • Lenovo (IBM)
  • Seagate
  • NetApp
  • Fujitsu
  • HP (3PAR)
  • Oracle (Sun)

and many many others.
 
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Almighty

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Oct 27, 2019
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That's what that cable in my drawer is for! I had an old Xyratex JBOD many years ago and needed to access the CLI. Was wondering why I had a 3.5mm to DB9 the other day, ha!
 

BoredSysadmin

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Mar 2, 2019
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That's what that cable in my drawer is for! I had an old Xyratex JBOD many years ago and needed to access the CLI. Was wondering why I had a 3.5mm to DB9 the other day, ha!
Some APC UPS and PDU management card use a very similar stereo jack to db9 cable
 

hardcore

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Nov 10, 2019
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Yep let's not even get started about the stupidity of a xyratex "USB" plug to DB9...
ESP. the RJ45 to RS232 that can clash with POE.

There should be a special place in hell for designers & engineers that misuse connectors.,
 

BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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So HPE has ended up taking ownership of all Xyratex IP through the acquisition of Cray few years ago.I had a very slim hope that they would provide access to the legacy system updates. But no such luck.

At least there is some documentation available usm_sbb-onestor_v5_r1.6c.pdf

The latest publicly available GEM update for the E6EBD canister I found is from Microsoft - USM 3.38

If the direct link does not open for you - try the update catalog page.
 
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gregsachs

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Aug 14, 2018
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So HPE has ended up taking ownership of all Xyratex IP through the acquisition of Cray few years ago.I had a very slim hope that they would provide access to the legacy system updates. But no such luck.

At least there is some documentation available usm_sbb-onestor_v5_r1.6c.pdf

The latest publicly available GEM update for the E6EBD canister I found is from Microsoft - USM 3.38
How might one apply said update? Or even check current firmware rev?
 

BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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How might one apply said update?
Using the FWDownloader tool
Code:
Seagate fwdownloader v4.02

Usage:fwdownloader [-d DEVICE] [-f FILENAME] [-4] [-e] [-b] [-o] [-ses] [-h]

                   [-scsi] [-debug] [-rb] [-wb] [-l] [-i BUFFID] [-m MODE]

                   [-timestamp] [-cli|-CLI|-wbcli COMMAND]

where:
    -d DEVICE      SES device number 

                   or a device name e.g. \\.\PhysicalDrive1

    -f FILENAME    file to be downloaded

    -4             select Page 4 downloads 

    -e             select Page E downloads 

    -b             for Page E downloads (only) use a BIG 4K buffer (default=on)

    -b-            turn off BIG 4K buffers and use small 468 byte buffers

    -o             it is for OneStor GEM. This option requires a rulefile 

                   which allows multiple downloads

    -wb            select Write Buffer 

    -rb            select Read Buffer 

    -l LEN         length in bytes; optional, as may be deduced from FILE

    -i BUFFID      buffer identifier (0=default) 0 to 255. Hex or decimal.

                   For SES page E this selects the controller when 0-2

                   0=Use default in gff, 1=Controller A, 2=Controller B

    -m MODE        buffer/download mode, MODE is number (def: 7). Hex or decimal

    -H             output the response in hexadecimal

    -ses           list of SES devices

    -scsi          list of SCSI devices

    -h             print out usage message 

    -V             Displays the Version of the utility

    -cli COMMAND   Run a GEM page 0x84 inband CLI command. Use -CLI for 0x85.

                   If COMMAND has multiple arguments use "" to surround whole

                   command. Note: Unlike other CLI interfaces GEM does not

                   support prepending of commands with -, + or % inband

    -wbcli COMMAND Run a GEM inband cli command only supported on some systems

                   and use write buffer and read buffer.

                   It does not use page 0x84 and 0x85.

                   If COMMAND has multiple arguments use "" to surround whole

    -timestamp     print out timestamps

    -debug[n]      turn on debug data output from the tool to level n (def=1)

                   Debug output is sent to jbifDebug.txt in the current folder



Note that hexadecimal parameters must start 0x



Examples of enclosure download: 

 1) Discover all SES devices visible

   fwdownloader -ses

 2) Fast download to device 0 with activation deferred

   fwdownloader -d 0 -m e -e -b -f MyFile.gff

 3) Activate a previously deferred download

   fwdownloader -d 0 -m f -e 

 4) Download and activate using defaults

   fwdownloader -d 0 -f MyFile.gff

 5) Download and activate using defaults but to controller b

   fwdownloader -d 0 -f MyFile.gff -i 2

 6) Download and activate using some defaults and proper windows device name

   fwdownloader -d \\.\PhysicalDrive1 -m 7 -f MyFile.gff

 7) Download to a drive using buffer ID 1 and mode 5 

   fwdownloader -d \\.\PhysicalDrive5 -wb -i 1 -m 5 -f MyFile.bin

 8) Check GEM running versions using the GEM inband CLI

   fwdownloader -d 0 -cli ver

   fwdownloader -d 0 -wbcli ver

   -wbcli runs a GEM inband cli command that's only supported on some systems

   and uses write buffer not SES.
 
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gregsachs

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Using the FWDownloader tool
Code:
Seagate fwdownloader v4.02

Usage:fwdownloader [-d DEVICE] [-f FILENAME] [-4] [-e] [-b] [-o] [-ses] [-h]

                   [-scsi] [-debug] [-rb] [-wb] [-l] [-i BUFFID] [-m MODE]

                   [-timestamp] [-cli|-CLI|-wbcli COMMAND]

where:
    -d DEVICE      SES device number

                   or a device name e.g. \\.\PhysicalDrive1

    -f FILENAME    file to be downloaded

    -4             select Page 4 downloads

    -e             select Page E downloads

    -b             for Page E downloads (only) use a BIG 4K buffer (default=on)

    -b-            turn off BIG 4K buffers and use small 468 byte buffers

    -o             it is for OneStor GEM. This option requires a rulefile

                   which allows multiple downloads

    -wb            select Write Buffer

    -rb            select Read Buffer

    -l LEN         length in bytes; optional, as may be deduced from FILE

    -i BUFFID      buffer identifier (0=default) 0 to 255. Hex or decimal.

                   For SES page E this selects the controller when 0-2

                   0=Use default in gff, 1=Controller A, 2=Controller B

    -m MODE        buffer/download mode, MODE is number (def: 7). Hex or decimal

    -H             output the response in hexadecimal

    -ses           list of SES devices

    -scsi          list of SCSI devices

    -h             print out usage message

    -V             Displays the Version of the utility

    -cli COMMAND   Run a GEM page 0x84 inband CLI command. Use -CLI for 0x85.

                   If COMMAND has multiple arguments use "" to surround whole

                   command. Note: Unlike other CLI interfaces GEM does not

                   support prepending of commands with -, + or % inband

    -wbcli COMMAND Run a GEM inband cli command only supported on some systems

                   and use write buffer and read buffer.

                   It does not use page 0x84 and 0x85.

                   If COMMAND has multiple arguments use "" to surround whole

    -timestamp     print out timestamps

    -debug[n]      turn on debug data output from the tool to level n (def=1)

                   Debug output is sent to jbifDebug.txt in the current folder



Note that hexadecimal parameters must start 0x



Examples of enclosure download:

1) Discover all SES devices visible

   fwdownloader -ses

2) Fast download to device 0 with activation deferred

   fwdownloader -d 0 -m e -e -b -f MyFile.gff

3) Activate a previously deferred download

   fwdownloader -d 0 -m f -e

4) Download and activate using defaults

   fwdownloader -d 0 -f MyFile.gff

5) Download and activate using defaults but to controller b

   fwdownloader -d 0 -f MyFile.gff -i 2

6) Download and activate using some defaults and proper windows device name

   fwdownloader -d \\.\PhysicalDrive1 -m 7 -f MyFile.gff

7) Download to a drive using buffer ID 1 and mode 5

   fwdownloader -d \\.\PhysicalDrive5 -wb -i 1 -m 5 -f MyFile.bin

8) Check GEM running versions using the GEM inband CLI

   fwdownloader -d 0 -cli ver

   fwdownloader -d 0 -wbcli ver

   -wbcli runs a GEM inband cli command that's only supported on some systems

   and uses write buffer not SES.
And one might find said tool where?
 

BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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If you run the installer - it would rename the files. If you want to extract the files manually - you can find the filenames in the "0" file. It's the manifest.

Code:
curl -s -o usm338.exe http://download.windowsupdate.com/d/msdownload/update/software/crup/2017/02/usmfirmwarepackage_2b29094600be6adfe35753ba40f88f4a2cfbba06.exe
7z e -so -bsp0 -bse0 usm338.exe u34 >e6ebd_combined_338.gff
7z e -so -bsp0 -bse0 usm338.exe u8 >FWDownloader.exe
7z e -so -bsp0 -bse0 usm338.exe u10 >JBODInterface.dll
FWDownloader.exe -d 0 -f e6ebd_combined_338.gff
 
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gregsachs

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Cool!
Now to decide if it is actually worth upgrading..
Scanning SES devices...Please Wait...1 SES device found.
Found SES Page 1 for Device 0 (\\.\SCSI1::0:46) size 235 (0xeb)
WWN: 50050cc10a10672c Vendor ID: XYRATEX Product ID: HB-1235-E6EBD
Product Revision: 221a S/N: SHU0946164L5EE8

Canister firmware : 2.2.26
Canister firmware date : Feb 5 2013 20:54:00
Canister bootloader : 5.01
Canister config CRC : 0x50172004
Canister VPD structure : 0x06
Canister VPD CRC : 0xCFA80F08
Canister CPLD : 0x13
Canister Power CPLD : 0x00176CF8
Canister chip : 0x80050002
Canister SDK : 3.06.01-B028
Midplane VPD structure : 0x08
Midplane VPD CRC : 0x9039B8B7
Midplane CPLD : 0x0F
PCM 1 firmware : 3.11
PCM 2 firmware : 3.11
PCM 1 VPD structure : 0x03
PCM 2 VPD structure : 0x03
PCM 1 VPD CRC : 0x14DA43AA
PCM 2 VPD CRC : 0x14DA43AA
Battery 1 firmware : Not present
Battery 2 firmware : Not present
 

BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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if it is actually worth upgrading
Since I run quite a few of those the main reason for the upgrade was to get them all to run the same version. As a bonus I got support for features like in-band GEM cli. Also some units got noticeably quieter.

I started upgrading all my SBB controllers shortly after I started this thread in 2019 and since then I have not experienced any negative side effects.
 
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BeTeP

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@gregsachs,

do you remember this conversation? SATIT2 is still being sold for like $100 shipped. Still worth it even in 2023.

You were looking to use it with DS2246. That one did not work for me. Instead when I wanted to build an all flash filer to house all those cheap (pre-Chia) SAS SSDs - I used SATIT2 with HB-2425. It was not as cheap (~$100 shipped with all trays) as DS2246 but still very affordable at ~$150 at the time.


You still can get HB-2425 for about $180 shipped - ~$80 for the enclosure and ~$100 for the set of trays.

Or if you live near Suwanee, Georgia you could get this beauty for $10
 
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gregsachs

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Aug 14, 2018
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@gregsachs,

do you remember this conversation? SATIT2 is still being sold for like $100 shipped. Still worth it even in 2023.

You were looking to use it with DS2246. That one did not work for me. Instead when I wanted to build an all flash filer to house all those cheap (pre-Chia) SAS SSDs - I used SATIT2 with HB-2425. It was not as cheap (~$100 shipped with all trays) as DS2246 but still very affordable at ~$150 at the time.


You still can get HB-2425 for about $180 shipped - ~$80 for the enclosure and ~$100 for the set of trays.

Or if you live near Suwanee, Georgia you could get this beauty for $10
Yeah, I remember talking about this previously. I actually have a ds2246 offline in my basement, i use it for cold storage of 2.5" drives. I've thought about migrating to a satit2 setup, but it would take effort, and things are stable right now.
 

necr

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Dec 27, 2017
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gregsachs

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Would you recommend SATIT?
I'm choosing between it and IOM12 (NetApp or Oracle with Mini-SAS connectors), like Lot of 5 Sun Oracle IOM12 SAS3 I/O 7318548 489089M-1710CX0178 Controller Module | eBay.

SATIT setup seems to be complex (guess you don't need to connect it to Azure anymore Deploy StorSimple 8000 series device in Government portal), and, has someone updated the controllers?

The alternative I remember was the Seagate controller Exos AP-BV-1, but it's a rare beast.
It depends on how you want to use the shelf. A pair of SATIT would let you do a HA Iscsi or similar file server using the shelf. The other ones are just sas expanders to run the shelf as a DAS JBOD unit.
 

necr

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Dec 27, 2017
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what's called SATIT2 here seems to be a Xyratex CS-6000-AB, a server with an LSI SAS adapter and a PCIe slot for extensions (IB/RoCE/iWARP/iSCSI with the correct HHHL NIC installed).
Basically erase SSD from the StorSimple abandonware, install Linux or Windows Server, and start serving shares.

I swear I've seen some newer versions of it to run a bit more stuff, a bit more energy efficient - new line of Seagate controllers, but can't find them on ebay anymore.

The benefit I'm seeing here: possibility to run SMB3 with RDMA, save some CPU
The biggest disadvantage: it's complex, SSD can fail, memory can fail, have to monitor and update the damn OS.