Hardware Support

The Solaris operating environment continues to provide the software needed to support new hardware.

x86: SCSI Disk Driver sd

In previous Solaris releases, SCSI disk support on x86-based systems was handled by the cmdk driver. In the Solaris 7 release, this support is handled by the sd driver, the SCSI disk driver used on Solaris (SPARC Platform Edition) systems. Although derived from the same code base, there are a few differences between the SPARC and Intel versions in this release. For example, special x86-specific volume label support is provided in the Intel version so applications (which use logical disk names in /dev/dsk) will not be affected by the driver change. The Intel version also provides x86-specific disk geometry support not required in the SPARC version. In addition, ATAPI CD-ROM support is now provided by the sd driver.

For more information, see these man pages: cdio(7I), cmdk(7D), dkio(7I), scsi(4), sd(7D).

x86: Intelligent I/O Framework Support

Intelligent I/O (I2O) is an emerging industry standard for modular, high-performance I/O subsystems defined and promoted by a special interest group, the I2OSIG. The goals of I2O are to:

• Improve system I/O throughput by off-loading low-level I/O handling from the host CPU to a dedicated I/O processor.

• Make it easier for OS and hardware vendors to write device drivers by defining a "split-driver" model. This includes a standard operating system module (OSM), provided by OS vendors, and a hardware-dependent module (HDM) provided by hardware vendors. An OSM for a given device type works with any HDM for that device type.

I2O support is currently available only in the Solaris (Intel Platform Edition). The Solaris 7 release includes the basic framework to enable support for I2O-capable hardware. The implementation supports I2O Specification 1.5. This framework includes:

• I2O message/transport functionality necessary for OSMs to control I2O devices

• Block storage and SCSI OSMs

In this release, booting from an I2O device is not supported. I2O hardware and non-Solaris software and firmware (such as HDMs and IRTOS) configuration from within the Solaris environment is also not supported. For a list of specific I2O hardware tested with Solaris 7, refer to the Solaris 7 (Intel Platform Edition) Hardware Compatibility List.