Updating Qlogic HBA firmware? Or bundled with the Driver?

[jedijeff]

I am getting ready to start reinstallation of esxi 5.1 clusters to 5.5. In doing this I am getting all the firmware upgraded. We are System X so IBM has a pretty good bundler of everything. The one exception was for the Qlogic 2562 which was an optional update. I am bios 3.2 and firmware 5.1. Newer bios is 3.24 and I don't say any groundbreaking fixed. I cannot find any information on the newer firmware, so I was deciding to update it anyway when I came across this link which states that there is no need to update the firmware on the Qlogic HBA, the drivers do it themselves?

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2013/02/qlogic-hba-firmware-versions.html

Can someone explain this is more depth to me, and is it true?

[Gortee]

Neat article.  I hate to say it but I would post a reply to Cormac that guy knows his stuff.  I assume this means that Qlogic got sick of the drive / firmware being out of sync so during a ESXi load it flashes the firmware if needed to match the driver being loaded... but best to ask Cormac.

[vangoose · Accepted solution]

I can confirm it's bundled, too.

Before I install ESXi 5.1, I upgraded firmware to 7.0 manually. Once ESXi is installed, I found firmware was downgraded to 5.0 which comes with stock driver. Then I upgraded the driver, firmware was upgraded to 7.0 again.

[jedijeff]

Thanks. I tested it to in a 5.5 host. and then checked everything via /proc/scsi/etc before and after. Pretty cool. Now if only all my emulex cards would this