[Info-vax] HDD Storage Firmware (Was: Re: Main cabinet fault indicator on an MSA1000)

[Dave Froble]

On 8/29/2018 1:42 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2018-08-29 16:29:01 +0000, Rich Jordan said:
>
>> Was there any means for doing the disk firmware updates from VMS?
>
> AFAIK, no.
>
> OpenVMS did have firmware tools useful for older DEC SCSI disks lurking
> in SYS$ETC:, and MSA$UTIL could flash some storage controller firmware,
> but AFAIK these tools were never re-purposed for newer disks.
>
> I'd certainly wanted to see platform-independent updates (and one that
> preferably didn't need a Windows license and a Windows-capable system)
> and/or platform firmware-based firmware updates become available, but
> the hardware vendor involved has chosen to use kits specific to
> operating systems.  This for the platform firmware (UEFI, etc), the host
> controller firmware, any outboard controllers, and the storage device
> firmware.
>
> The usual outcome of this process was and remains unsurprising: most of
> the firmware kits were and are available for Microsoft Windows, and
> potentially also a subset of the kits were available some combinations
> of other choices.
>
> VSI will be facing some similar discussions and debates with x86-64
> sometime down the road.  The updates will almost certainly initially be
> left up to the platform vendor and that vendor's tooling, which means
> most kits will expect or require Microsoft Windows.
>
> This is not a trivial problem for an operating system vendor to solve,
> either.  Far from it.

No, nor should they waste the effort in doing so.

People who have such storage systems have spent some significant bucks 
for them.  So, what's the trivial cost of the weendoze 
software/system/whatever for maintenance on the storage systems.

I'd much rather see the efforts spent on things like, oh, maybe better 
networking, encryption, TLS, certificates, and such unpleasantness.