IBM #ESA3 PCIe2 1.8 GB Cache RAID SAS Adapter Tri-port 6 Gb for 8202, 8205, 8247, 8286 and 9119

IBM feature #ESA3 is the PCIe2 1.8 GB Cache RAID SAS Adapter Tri-port 6 Gb, CCIN 57BB, a PCI Express generation-2 adapter that supports the attachment of SAS disks and SAS solid-state drives through three mini SAS high-density connectors. It is a large cache adapter with a 1.8 GB write cache, and integrated flash memory with capacitors protects the write cache during a power failure without batteries. It is a single wide, full-height, short adapter and is used in the IBM Power Systems 8202, 8205, 8247, 8286 and 9119.

The adapter must be installed in pairs in a high availability, multi-initiator RAID configuration with two adapters in dual-controller mode. The pair mirrors write-cache data and RAID parity footprints, and if the pairing is broken the write cache is disabled. A SAS adapter-to-adapter (AA) cable is required by default on the third port for the highest bandwidth between the pair until the maximum device quantity needs all three ports. AIX and Linux support both adapters in one system or partition or in two separate ones, and IBM i requires both in the same system or partition. The #ESA3 is not compatible with #5913 and must not be connected in the same adapter pair.

Three mini SAS HD connectors attach the SAS drives in the #5887 EXP24S, up to three EXP24S per pair, with a maximum of 24 SSDs, and SSDs are not allowed on the top port (T2). RAID 0, 5, 6 and 10 with hot-spare capability are provided, and JBOD is not supported except for the initial formatting of new devices to 528 bytes. The FRU number is 74Y7131. Supported operating systems include AIX 7.1 and 6.1, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 and 5.7, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 and 10 SP4, and IBM i 7.1 and 7.2.