Correct LSI driver download for Windows?

[chrisy]

I note that the virtual machine guide recommends that if you download the LSI SCSI driver for a virtual machine, you should use the LSI20320-R driver. That's fine but there's also been mention of using the LSI53C1030 driver, which seems to be more up-to-date on the LSI site.

Does anyone know for sure what the correct LSI download is, for various flavours of Windows? I'm most interested in XP, and 2003 32- and 64-bit. I'm sure they'll all appear to work, but for building large database systems some are probably subtly better (or more supported) than others.

thanks!

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Chris

[Cloneranger]

Here you go, this is the product page for the right card:

There is a full list of OS on there,

LSI_U320_W2003_IT_MID1011438.zip is the file you should have for Windows Server 2003,

[chrisy]

Yes, but which LSI card is ESX most like (ESX3.5) ? Is it still the 20320 which has the support you listed, or the 53C1030 which has different drivers?

The 20320 drivers for Win2003 date from June 2005 and don't list support for 64-bit Windows but is listed by VMware in the docs as the 'right' one to use.

The 53C1030 drivers date from Nov 07, but doesn't obviously mention 64 bit that I can see. Maybe there's yet another model that works with the VMware virtualised LSI support.

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Chris

[Cloneranger]

I have created new machines from scratch on 3.5,

And they dont seem to have a newer virtual card then my machines that came over from 3.02,

They both run the same drivers too so I wouldnt of thought that 3.5 has a new virtual HBA,

[wila]

The LSI drivers that come with windows 2003 should work just fine for W2k3.

http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/common/guest_win_scsidrv.html

For Buslogic vmware has a special driver, which is found here:

http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp

If you still want the LSI driver in Windows XP then try the one from this page:

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=174

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Wil

[chrisy]

Agreed, the Windows LSI drivers do work fine, and agreed on the location of the LSI XP drivers. My interest in the exact driver version was prompted by this post:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/124233?tstart=0

...which links to this LSI document with performance tuning tips (that won't apply to the Microsoft driver, I'm sure)

http://www.lsilogic.com/files/support/ssp/fusionmpt/Win2003/symmpi2003_12002.txt

Looking carefully at the LSI web site, that text file doesn't seem to come from the 20320 driver set.

For someone aiming at an IO-heavy application, the best performing, most supported drivers are unclear.

Keep the comments coming! I'm sure someone's looked into this in detail

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Chris

[wila]

My interest in the exact driver version was prompted by this post:

Ah i see.

Well i've just browsed over the LSI site too and the XP driver (64 bits as well) appears to be this one:

http://www.lsi.com/cm/License.do?url=/support/downloads/hbas/scsi/software_drivers/windows/symmpi_SC...

That i found on this page.

I'm not an expert in this particular field, but one thing that is sticking out to me is that there is no link to a 64bits windows 2003 driver, which would make me expect that the driver is included on the windows install disk. Just as what i recall to have read in the documentation.

Haven't read much about getting a special vendor hba driver as a particular useful performance tweak either, but again it could be just me.

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Wil