sbus prestoserve card software and batteries

From: Scott Mickey (mickey_at_denver.net)
Date: 08/13/04

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    Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 01:39:29 -0600
To: sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org

    Greetings Sun Managers,
     
    I have a sbus prestoserve card.
    http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Devices/Memory/MEM_Prestosrv.html
     
    I need software (SUNWprsto package) and
    I need advice on replacement batteries.
     
    I understand that Sun has EOL'd all of their
    host-based battery-backed disk cache hardware,
    but I want to get this unit operational for
    some benchmark testing anyway.
     
    I understand that prestoserve cards were
    primarily used to accelerate servers running
    NFS version 2 (Solaris versions <= 2.4).
    NFS v2 servers were slowed by synchronous writes
    to disk and the prestoserve cache remedied this
    bottleneck to some extent.
    With Solaris versions >= 2.5, NFS version 3 was
    available and caching with a prestoserve card
    no longer gave significant performance advantage.
    Of course, disk caching can benefit applications
    other than NFS, and this is my focus.
     
    I was able to locate Sun's last prestoserve
    software patch online:
    "Patch-ID# 103043-08
     Synopsis: Prestoserve 2.4.2: Jumbo Patch"
    This patch contained only these files:
    /kernel/drv/pr (prestoserve device driver)
    /usr/sbin/presto (command line interface)
    /usr/share/man/man1m/presto.1m (man page)
     
    I used this Sun doc to install the prestoserve
    device driver without pkgadd:
    "Prestoserve User's Guide - Installing the
    Prestoserve Solaris 2.x Software"
    http://docs.sun.com/source/801-4896-11/Presto.chp3.html
    Main page here:
    http://docs.sun.com/source/801-4896-11/index.html
     
    When I added the prestoserve driver to the
    system, I got a "failed to attach" message:
     
    # add_drv -m '* 0644 root sys' -i 'MMI,prestoserve' pr
    devfsadm: driver failed to attach: pr
    Warning: Driver (pr) successfully added to system but failed to attach
     
    Also, these messages were seen on the console:
    pr: NOTICE: Prestoserve: MMI,prestoserve 0 battery #0 LOW
    pr: NOTICE: Prestoserve: MMI,prestoserve 0 battery #1 LOW
    pr: WARNING: Prestoserve: all MMI,prestoserve 0 batteries are low!
    pr: NOTICE: Prestoserve: MMI,prestoserve 0 battery #0 enabled
    pr: NOTICE: Prestoserve: MMI,prestoserve 0 battery #1 enabled
     
    The /usr/sbin/presto command yields:
    # presto -p
    presto: PRGETSTATUS failed: Invalid argument
    presto: PRGETSTATUS failed: Invalid argument
     
    Patch 103043-08 simply does not contain all of
    the required software.
     
    Sun did have software available at one time:
    Unbundled Software Order Number SPRE-PF
    "SBus Prestoserve Software for Solaris 2.4
    CD-ROM, Documentation, and User License for
    all SPARC Systems". $50.00.
    This is a reasonable price, but no longer
    available.
     
    If anyone has this CDROM or the SUNWprsto
    package, please let me know.
     
    As for the low batteries, the mfg/part# is
    EaglePicher LTC-7P. Spec pages:
    http://www.epcompower.com/CPS/Products/ProductSearch/ProductDetails.htm?product_id=100112
    and
    http://www.epcompower.com/CPS/documents/specsheets/ltc7p.pdf
     
    These 3.5V 750mAH batteries are NOT rechargeable,
    so they must be unsoldered and replaced.
    I would like to avoid this fix if possible
    since I am just doing non-production benchmarks.
    Is there a way to enable the prestoserve cache
    with the batteries non-functional? -I realize
    that in this mode if a power failure occurs
    data loss and/or corruption will result.
     
    Thanks in advance,
     
    Scott Mickey
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