RaidArray 230/Plus (KZPAC)

The DEC RaidArray 230/Plus (KZPAC) is a PCI Wide Single-Ended UltraSCSI RAID controller manufactured by Mylex and based on the DAC960PU. DEC sold these for both Alpha and x86 systems for use with the integrated StorageWorks drive shelf on certain machines (AlphaServer 1000/1200/DS20, Prioris HX, etc) as well as external StorageWorks drive shelves (DS-BA356). The controller supports up to 8MB of Ramtron ED-RAM cache, an optional cache battery, and drives of up to 9.1GB.

Cache Battery

The RaidArray 230/Plus can optionally be equipped with a rechargeable 2.4V 650mAh NiCd battery module (part KZPSC-UB, pictured right) which can retain data in 4MB of cache for 12 hours, or 8 hours for 8MB. Of course NiCd batteries will eventually leak and cause damage to circuits. The battery pictured has already started leaking and done significant damage to the battery module. So be sure to inspect cards equipped with cache batteries regularly. Old batteries should be removed and safely disposed of to not risk damage. If a RaidArray 230/Plus card (or computer containing such a card) is going to be put into storage, the battery should be removed from the battery module first.

Firmware

The latest available firmware is v2.7 (Swxcrfwp.270), which can be loaded using the firmware update utility (Ra200fl.exe). The process is described in Appendix A of the RCU users guide.

RAID Configuration Utility (RCU)

This is used to configure the RAID controller. It lives on a floppy disk - on x86 systems, you boot from the disk while on Alpha systems you run the utility from the ARC/AlphaBIOS firmware. For the x86 version, see the Media section below.

Ra200RCU.exe — Offline config utility v4.78-08 for Alpha
RCU Users Guide

StorageWorks Command Console

Drivers

Windows NT 4.0

Media

Some of these are older versions of what is available above.

Part	Format	Description
AG-R0HFD-BE	CD-ROM Image	Compaq StorageWorks Command Console, version 2.1
AK-R07KB-CA	Compressed (ZIP) Floppy Image	RAID Array 230/Plus SW RX23 1 V1.0A for Windows NT Alpha
AK-R77UA-CA	Compressed (ZIP) Floppy Image	RAID Array 230/Plus RAID Configuration Utility V1.0 for Intel
AK-R77TA-CA	Compressed (ZIP) Floppy Image	RAID ARRAY 230/PLUS V1.0 for Windows NT Intel
AK-R07LC-CA	Compressed (ZIP) Floppy Image	RAID Array 230/Plus RAID Configuration Utility V1.0b for Alpha

Documentation

Images - 3 channel (KZPAC-Cx)

Images - 3 channel with cache battery (KZPAC-XF in this case)

The battery on the cache battery module attached to this card started leaking at some point. Most of the damage has been done to the battery module to which the battery was originally glued, though the potassium hydroxide leaking from the battery has also defeated the glue. Damage to the KZPAC itself seems relatively minor, probably because the card was in an AlphaServer 4100 stored on its side so the card was upright. Electrolyte from the battery had just started dripping down onto the AlphaServers PCI motherboard but was caught before any damage to that was done.