Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage Series

Firmware 08D7/A Release Notes

Table of Contents
About This Document ................................................................................... 1
Intended Audience ...................................................................................... 1
Getting Help ............................................................................................... 1
About This Release ...................................................................................... 2
New Features and Important Enhancements ................................................... 2
New System and Hardware Requirements ...................................................... 3
Fixed Problems ........................................................................................... 4
Known Problems ......................................................................................... 7
Notes on Installation.................................................................................... 7
Documentation ........................................................................................... 7

About This Document

This document provides late-breaking information about the Hitachi Adaptable
Modular Storage Series firmware version 08D7/A. It includes information that
was not available at the time the technical documentation for this product was
published, as well as a list of known problems and solutions.

Intended Audience
This document is intended for customers and Hitachi Data Systems authorized
service partners who license and use the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage
Series.

Getting Help
Hitachi Data Systems Support Connect is the destination for technical support
of products and solutions sold by Hitachi Data Systems. To contact technical
Copyright 2016 Hitachi, Ltd. All rights reserved.
RN-AMS2K-08D7A, September 2016
Notice: No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or stored in a database or retrieval system for any purpose without the express written permission of Hitachi Data
Systems Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Hitachi Data Systems").
Hitachi Data Systems reserves the right to make changes to this document at any time without notice and assumes no responsibility for its
use. Hitachi Data Systems products and services can only be ordered under the terms and conditions of Hitachi Data Systems applicable
agreements. All of the features described in this document may not be currently available. Refer to the most recent product announcement or
contact your local Hitachi Data Systems sales office for information on feature and product availability.
This document contains the most current information available at the time of publication. When new and/or revised information becomes
available, this entire document will be updated and distributed to all registered users.
Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd., and the Hitachi Data Systems design mark is a trademark
and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks or service marks of and are used to identify
products or services of their respective owners.
1

About This Release

support, log on to Hitachi Data Systems Support Connect for contact

information: https://support.hds.com/en_us/contact-us.html.

About This Release

These release notes cover the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage Series
firmware version 08D7/A.

How to obtain a copy

This firmware can be downloaded or ordered from The Download Center
(TDC) in the Technical Information Service Center (TISC).

New Features and Important Enhancements

New Features

None

Important Enhancements

Improved host I/O response handling for simultaneous sequential write

and random write operations.
Before the improvement, a sequential write access operation generated
parity data after the data in the stripe column was collected in cache
memory. However, if sequential write and random write operations
occurred at the same time, the inflow control prevented data in the stripe
column from being added to cache memory. This behavior could delay host
I/O responses.
With this firmware release, parity data is generated by reading the
received stripe data from a drive instead of waiting for the data in the
stripe column to accumulate in cache memory. This new behavior occurs
even if the host writes data that has not yet been written to a drive and
the firmware recognizes a sequential write access. The improvement
prevents inflow control operations so that I/O responses to the host are no
longer delayed when sequential and random write operations are
performed at the same time.

Improved recovery and failure part identification processing when the

storage system detects a check code error.
With this firmware release, recovery processing and failure part
identification processing when a check code error is detected have been
improved in the following ways:

<Recovery processing at check code error detection by the storage

system when reading data from drive>
Previously, if a storage system detected a check code error (*)
when reading data from a drive, the drive was blocked immediately.
With this firmware release, the storage system manages the
threshold for the check code error and performs correction copy

Copyright 2016 Hitachi, Ltd. All rights reserved.

New System and Hardware Requirements

until the number of errors reaches the threshold in order to restore

the block of check code error without blocking the drive.

<Recovery processing at check code error detection by array

system when writing data on drive>
Previously, if a storage system detected a check code error while
writing data to a drive, the data write operation was retried and the
drive was blocked if the number of retries reached the threshold.
With this firmware release, a storage system that detects a check
code error when writing data to a drive initiates a correction copy
before the storage system attempts to retry writing data writing to
the drive to prevent the drive from being blocked.

<Failure part identification processing at check code error detection

by array system>
If a storage system detects a check code error on multiple drives
when transferring data through the same SAS CTL (SAS protocol
chip), it can determine whether the problem is with the SAS-CTL
and generates the following Web messages about replacing both
controllers.
WD0000 Please replace CTL because LA/LRC/WR_SEQ error was
detected in HDUs(CTL-0)
WD0001 Please replace CTL because LA/LRC/WR_SEQ error was
detected in HDUs(CTL-1)

New System and Hardware Requirements

None

Copyright 2016 Hitachi, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fixed Problems

Fixed Problems
No
1

Items

Contents

Title

The storage system no longer goes down when recovering data

(correction copy) following a drive failure.

Category

Common

Phenomena

Previously, a drive failure in RAID group #A of a RAID 6

configuration initiated data recovery for the drive. (*2).
During the recovery, a failure on a data recovery source drive could
generate an unreadable PIN (*1) condition in drive #B, which is a
member of the data recovery target drive. (*3)
Before the unreadable PIN is removed via failure maintenance,
drive #C in RAID group #A failed in order for data recovery of drive
#C to succeed. (*2)
During the data recovery, one of the following failures could occur.
(*4)
- A controller becomes blocked.
- One controller becomes blocked, then the other controller
becomes blocked, and then the storage system goes down.
*1: Data that cannot be read due to multiple-drive failure.
<Web Message>
*2: I15000 Data recovery started or I15A00 Dynamic sparing start
*3: W0L000 Unreadable PIN detected or W0M000 Unreadable PIN
detected
*4: HJ17FF Microprogram error[DRC]

Conditions
of
Occurrence

The problem occurs when all the following conditions are met.
(1) RAID group #A is a RAID 6 configuration that contains volumes.
(2) Due to a drive failure of RAID group #A, the data recovery
processing (*1) of the drive works.
(3) During the data recovery processing of (2), a drive failure
occurs on a data recovery source drive and an unreadable PIN (*2)
occurs on drive #B (the data recovery target drive).
(4) After (3), the unreadable PIN condition is not removed by a
failure maintenance operation.
(5) After (3), the data recovery processing (*1) of drive #C works
due to a failure of drive #C in RAID group #A.
*1: Correction copy or correction copy where dynamic sparing
switches internally due to a drive failure of the dynamic sparing
source drive.
*2: Data that cannot be read due to multiple-drive failure.

Copyright 2016 Hitachi, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fixed Problems

Affected
Products
and
Version

AMS 2100 and AMS 2300 (H/W Rev.0100): 0832/A and later
AMS 2500(H/W Rev.0100): 0840/A and later
AMS 2100, AMS 2300, and AMS 2500(H/W Rev.0200): 0890/A and
later

Copyright 2016 Hitachi, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Known Problems

Title

CTL#0 is no longer blocked with no response generated for host

access during a firmware update.

Category

Fibre Channel

Phenomena

Previously, if a user updated firmware on a storage system that had

CTL#1 blocked by a previous firmware update (*1), the following
phenomena may occur.
- CTL#0 is blocked and the firmware update ends abnormally.
- CTL#1 returns no response for host accesses until CTL#0 is
blocked.
*1 Firmware update by selecting [Settings], [Firmware] and then
Update Firmware in the tree view on Hitachi Storage Navigator
Modular 2
<Web message>
HZ0N00 Kernel processing error

Conditions
of
Occurrence

The problem occurs when all the following conditions are met.
(1) AMS 2100(H/W Rev.0200) or AMS 2300(H/W Rev.0200)
(2) Dual controller system.
(3) An iSCSI host interface board is installed or a host interface
board is not installed.
(4) Firmware update (*1) is performed.
(5) When CTL#1 reboots as part of the firmware update of (4), a
failure occurs on CTL#1 in the several-micro sec time period where
accesses between controllers are not allowed, and CTL#1 is
blocked.
(6) After (5), CTL#1 is replaced, or is dummy replaced.
(7) After (6), all of the following operations are not performed:
- CTL#0 replacement
- CTL#0 dummy replacement
- Storage system planned stop
- Storage system reboot
(8) After (6), firmware update (*1) is performed.
*1 Firmware update by selecting [Settings], [Firmware] and then
Update Firmware in the tree view on Hitachi Storage Navigator
Modular 2

Affected
Products
and
Version

AMS 2100(H/W Rev.0200) and AMS 2300(H/W Rev.0200): 0890/A

and later

Copyright 2016 Hitachi, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Known Problems

Known Problems

None

Notes on Installation

None

Documentation
Related Documents
None

Documentation Update
None

Documentation Errata
None

Copyright 2016 Hitachi, Ltd. All rights reserved.