adding a SATA drive to my TSM SERVER running AIX

[javajockey]

Hello all,

I'm running low on diskpool storage on my TSM server. I use disk for temporary storage then migrate over to tape. My hardware is as follows.

IBM P520 model 8203-e4a
AIX 5.3
All drives are SAS
3584 lto4

I would like to add 3 2TB SATA drives to the system.
When I added the drive, it shows up as "populated" in DIAG , but does not assign a HDISK reverence.

Did I forget to do something?

[BBB]

If you run "cfgmgr" does the disk show up after that?

[javajockey]

nope,
This is what I get

Method error (/usr/lib/methods/cfgscsises -l ses3 ):
       0514-082 The requested function could only be performed for some
                of the specified paths.
Method error (/usr/lib/methods/cfgscsises -l ses2 ):
       0514-082 The requested function could only be performed for some
                of the specified paths.
Method error (/usr/lib/methods/cfgscsises -l ses4 ):
       0514-082 The requested function could only be performed for some
                of the specified paths.
cfgmgr: 0514-621 WARNING: The following device packages are required for
       device support but are not currently installed.
devices.fcp.array
devices.sata
bash-3.00#

I verified devices.sata is installed

bash-3.00# lslpp -l |grep -i sata
 devices.sata.diag          5.3.9.0  COMMITTED  Serial ATA Device Diagnostics
 devices.sata.rte          5.3.11.1  COMMITTED  Serial ATA Device Software
bash-3.00#

I contacted IBM on the issue. Naturally they told me the hard drive will not work because it needs a "special microcode". Only "OEM" drives have the necessary firmware. The largest drive I can buy for this server is 450G
Can anyone (preferably not an IBM employee) verify this? Are the hard drives in the server really proprietary?

[BBB]

As in the error message you got, is devices.fcp.array installed? Still might not work due to what IBM said but..

[heada]

AIX will not recognize a device without the special VPD(Vital Product Data) chip on it. Only IBM hardware has the VPD chip on it. You're stuck with IBM hardware.

You could run Lunix on the Power based hardware and not need hardware with VPD chips.

-Aaron