IBM PCIe3 Quad-Port 6Gb x8 SAS RAID Adapter (CCIN 57B4 / FRU 01DH597)

1. Product Architectural Profile

The 01DH597 is a high-performance, high-density Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk and tape controller card built on the IBM “Crocodile” Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). It is a cache-less (Zero-Write-Cache) or system-mirroring reliant controller engineered specifically to efficiently handle high-IOPS solid-state drive (SSD) and hard disk drive (HDD) arrays or external tape backup infrastructures.

Attribute	Technical Specification
IBM FRU Part Number	01DH597
CCIN (Custom Card ID)	57B4
Feature Codes (FC)	EJ0M (Low Profile), EJ0K (Full Height), EJ0X / EL60 (Tape/Removable Media variant)
I/O Bus Architecture	PCI Express (PCIe) Generation 3.0 x8 link width (backwards compatible with PCIe 2.0 / 1.0)
Data Transfer Rate	Up to 6 Gbps per SAS physical link
Onboard Cache	None (No non-volatile write cache memory onboard)
Form Factor	Low-profile short-form factor card (available with both FH and LP brackets)

2. Interface & Connectivity

• Physical Ports: 4 External x4 Mini-SAS High-Density (HD) connectors.

• Total Physical Links: 16 physical PHY lines distributed across the 4 connectors.

• Cable Compatibility: Requires specific narrow-backshell HD SAS cables (such as YO, X, AT, or AE1/YE1 cables depending on the target system/enclosure type).

• Protocol Support: Natively processes SAS Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP) and Serial Management Protocol (SMP).

3. Storage Device Capacity & RAID Support

The 57B4 controller can be configured to manage standard high-density drive drawers or dedicated backup solutions.

Storage Enclosure Capabilities

• Maximum Connected Drives: Natively supports up to 96 or 98 physical disk devices (contingent upon the external expansion enclosure layout, such as the IBM EXP24S).

• SSD Optimization: Capable of managing up to 48 Solid-State Drives (SSDs) simultaneously in high-IOPS environments.

• Hardware RAID Levels: Provides hardware acceleration for RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10.

• JBOD Functionality: Raw pass-through (512-byte block sizes) is fully supported, but restricted to single-controller topologies.

• Data Reliability: Features dynamic sector repairing (background surface scanning and bad sector remapping) and Predictive Failure Analysis (S.M.A.R.T.) tracking.

Removable Media Alternative Mode (Tape/DVD)

When deployed using Feature Codes EJ0X or EL60, the card alters its profile to handle high-performance tape automation:

• Allows direct attachment of up to 4 SAS tape/DVD drives using AE1 cables, or up to 8 tape drives via split-out YE1 cables.

• Constraint: Tape/DVD configurations operate exclusively in a single-adapter configuration and cannot be mixed with SAS storage disks on the same controller.

4. Multi-Initiator & High Availability (HA)

For mission-critical enterprise environments running on Power8 systems, this adapter supports Dual Storage IOA (Input/Output Adapter) configurations.

• Two 57B4 adapters can be cross-linked to a shared SAS drive enclosure to create a multi-initiator high-availability loop.

• Provides instant failover protection across separate partitions without needing onboard battery-backed caches.

5. Operating System Support Matrix

This adapter requires specialized IBM ipr architecture drivers, which are built natively into the enterprise operating systems below:

• IBM i: IBM i 7.1 (with Technology Refresh 7) or later; IBM i 6.1 (with 6.1.1-M Machine Code) or later.

• AIX: AIX Version 6.1 or later; AIX Version 7.1 or later (requires the devices.pci.14104A0 device driver package).

• Linux: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.4 or later; SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP3 or later. Management relies on the standard iprutils software suite.