Chelsio Terminator T5/T6 FCoE Storage Offload Adapters
Hardware Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) storage offload on Chelsio's Terminator 5 and Terminator 6 converged network adapters, which let datacenter servers from the mid-2010s onward present an Ethernet card to the network and a SCSI/FC host bus adapter to the storage stack on the same PCIe device. It is aimed at enterprises consolidating SAN traffic onto 10/25/40/100 GbE links.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche role, because Chelsio still sells T6 Unified Wire adapters with FCoE offload in 2025 and the code received cleanup patches as recently as January 2025, yet real-world deployments are largely limited to specialized datacenter storage setups. There is no obvious upstream alternative that provides the same hardware FCoE offload, so removing it would strand the small number of remaining users.
repository signals
sources
- git.kernel.org
Kconfig identifies this as the Chelsio FCoE driver and describes support for Chelsio converged network adapters.
- git.kernel.org
Current source probes only T5/T6 cards and ships T5/T6 firmware names, indicating the maintained hardware scope is Chelsio T5/T6 FCoE offload adapters.
- lore.kernel.org
The driver received a linux-scsi patch in January 2025, showing ongoing upstream touch rather than abandonment.
- lore.kernel.org
The driver received another linux-scsi fix/cleanup patch in March 2024, consistent with active maintenance.
- chelsio.com
Chelsio's current Unified Wire Adapters page markets T6 adapters and explicitly lists FCoE offload among supported functions.
- chelsio.com
A current Chelsio T6 adapter product page advertises FCoE capability on a sellable adapter family, supporting that compatible hardware remained commercially offered into 2025.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Not a dead driver: local shell inspection of Kconfig/source showed a real PCI SCSI/FCoE driver, with current code narrowed to T5/T6 hardware despite older Kconfig wording. lore_file_timeline and lore_activity on csio_init.c showed touches through 2025-01 and a stable inclusion in 2026-02; I also attempted a removal-subject search via lore_regex (timed out) and lei (blocked by local sandbox), so I found no positive evidence of an active removal series. Web search found Chelsio's current Unified Wire/T6 product pages still advertising FCoE offload, so the hardware looks niche but not extinct. Recommendation is keep-annotate because upstream activity exists, but deployments are likely limited to legacy/specialized datacenter storage environments and there is no clear upstream replacement driver for the same hardware-offload use case.