a) yes
b) n/a
c) no, I have personally not upgraded the driver. Best practice before upgrading drivers
- read release notes & take any required actions (including full backup just in case)
- power cycle before attempting upgrade
- Usually if there are driver updates there are firmware updates for controller, and IBM has frequent firmware updates for disk drives as well. IBM's release notes are good at providing full disclosure of prerequisites.
- Read release notes.
- Read release notes.
- kick off a media verify to make sure there are no bad blocks and XOR problems before rocking the boat.
- release notes