[geeks] Sun T5240 RAID card

[John-Paul Stewart]

On 2024-05-06 8:15 p.m., Madeline Autumn-Rose via geeks wrote:
> I picked up a T5240 a couple days ago from a recycler dirt cheap.
> During testing it endlessly prints "waiting for aac controller to start"
> and never makes it to an ok prompt and doesn't seem to ever succeed.
> Looks like an internal SAS card is in an expansion slot with a battery
> so I am betting that's the relevant card. Anyone know the part number
> for that, or know of a potential fix for this issue?
> Alternatively...does a non-RAID internal SAS card exist that could be
> booted from on this machine? JBOD mode for the front slots would be ideal.

The internal RAID controller is part 375-3536 which is a re-badged
Adaptec ASR-5805.  I don't know if any Adaptec would work or if there is
specific Sun/Oracle firmware on the Sun part number.

There is also the option of using part 375-3487, which is a re-badged
LSI SAS3801E SAS JBOD controller.

However, neither of those are necessary.  The T5240 has an LSI 1068E SAS
controller on the motherboard with two SAS connectors (supporting 4
drives each) between the memory DIMM slots.  You can route SAS cables
from the drive backplane to them (which is the default configuration
without a RAID card) and be good to go.

Everything you might need to know about the T5240 can be found here:

https://dogemicrosystems.ca/pub/Sun/System_Handbook/Sun_syshbk_V3.4/Systems/SE_T5240/SE_T5240.html