SAS Explorer

If you are working with SAS devices then you know that there are many ways the various HBAs, expanders, and devices may be connected. Keeping track of what device is connected to what other device can be a challenge – especially if your development workspace looks like this typical one:

To help you get an organized view of your SAS workspace SCSI Toolbox has developed the SAS Explorer.

SAS Explorer is a development tool that allows you to:

•  Discover all devices that make up your SAS environment, such as:

• SAS Host Bus Adapters (HBA)
• SAS Drives
• SATA Drives
• SAS Expanders

•  View the SAS storage subsystem with a graphical topology map like this:

•  View SAS specific information about each device in the subsystem, such as

• SAS Address
• PHY Identifier
• Device information
• Attached SAS address
• Attached PHY identifier
• Attached Device information
• Negotiated speed
• Vendor, Product of attached drives
• Change count
• Invalid DWord count
• Disparity error count
• Loss DWord sync count
• Routing attribute
• PHY reset problem count

The following pages will show a brief walkthrough demonstrating the capabilities of SAS Explorer.

Here is a screen shot of SAS Explorer showing the subsystem topology:

The four HBA's pictured are actually the four ports of the LSI 1064 four-port HBA.

This view immediately shows us the single SATA drive attached to HBA0, and the SAS Expander with four drives attached to HBA1.

To view specific information about any of the devices shown simply click on the device you are interested in. As our next example we will click on HBA0 – the screenshot below shows the results:

As the info box shows, this HBA is connected to a non-SAS drive that has negotiated a transfer rate of 1.5 Gb/sec – a SATA drive!

Now let's click on HBA 1 –

And then click on the expander –

We can see that this is a 12 port expander. Information is provided about each port that has a device attached. As you can see, PHY 6 of the expander is connected to the HBA, and PHYs 2,5,8, & 10 are connected to target devices.

Let's click on Target 3

Notice that we can see this drives Vendor, Product, and Firmware Revision information, along with its device type, SAS address, device information, and the address at which Windows will see the drive.

Clicking on the “Save to File” button will write all information on each device to a text file. Here is a sample of the contents of this file:

Output from SAS Explorer

The time is Wed Nov 24 14:32:19 2004

Device Information:

Dev 0, Handle = 1, Parent = 0, SAS ID = 500062B000000B24

- Dev present in SAS topology - Mapping is persistent

- Device type = End device

- Device is NOT a SATA Host

HBA 0 - Device is a SSP Initiator

- Device is NOT SATA

- Device is NOT a SMP Target - Device is NOT a STP Target - Device is NOT a SSP Target

- Device is NOT directly attached

- LSI is the manufacturer

- Device is NOT ATAPI

Summary: - This is an HBA

Dev 4, Handle = 5, Parent = 1, SAS ID = 8675071C9F669991

- Dev present in SAS topology - Mapping is persistent

- Device type = End device

- Device is NOT a SATA Host

- Device is NOT a SMP Initiator - Device is NOT a STP Initiator - Device is NOT a SSP Initiator

- Device is SATA

- Device is NOT a SMP Target - Device is NOT a STP Target - Device is NOT a SSP Target

- Device is Directly Attached to Controller

- LSI is NOT the manufacturer

- Device is NOT ATAPI

Summary: - This is a SATA Target Device at Bus 0 Target 4 - connected to a Host Bus Adapter

Maxtor 6, Y120M0 , YAR5 - Device Type = 00

Dev 6, Handle = 7, Parent = 6, SAS ID = 500605B000000D62

- Dev present in SAS topology - Mapping is persistent

- Device type = End device

- Device is NOT a SATA Host

- Device is NOT a SMP Initiator - Device is NOT a STP Initiator - Device is NOT a SSP Initiator

- Device is SATA

- Device is NOT a SMP Target - Device is NOT a STP Target - Device is NOT a SSP Target

- Device is NOT directly attached

- LSI is NOT the manufacturer

- Device is NOT ATAPI

Summary: - This is a SATA Target Device at Bus 0 Target 2 - connected to a SAS Expander

ST33210A, , 3.05 - Device Type = 00

Dev 5, Handle = 6, Parent = 1, SAS ID = 500605B000000D60

- Dev present in SAS topology - Mapping is persistent

- Device type = Edge expander device

- Device is Directly Attached to Controller

- LSI is the manufacturer

- Device is NOT ATAPI

Summary: - This is an Expander

Expander Information:

Phy 2 is attached to Handle 7

- Attached Dev Info = 81, Phy Info = 718

Phy 5 is attached to Handle 8

- Attached Dev Info = 401, Phy Info = 729

Phy 6 is attached to Handle 1

- Attached Dev Info = 1071, Phy Info = 729

Phy 8 is attached to Handle 9

- Attached Dev Info = 401, Phy Info = 729

Phy 10 is attached to Handle 10

- Attached Dev Info = 81, Phy Info = 728

The SAS Explorer works with the LSI 1064 SAS HBA. For information about obtaining SAS Explorer please contact Jeremy Wolfe at 720-249-2641