Can you get S.M.A.R.T info ?

[Black Ninja]

Does anybody know if it's even possible to get a SMART info about a drive behind megaraid controller with esxi installed on it?


P.S. This not about "how to monitor raid card health in esxi" this is about how to pull info from SMART about drive, like: How many TB already written or how many sector were relocated, or how many power-on hours.

Thanks to anybody who can help. If it's not possible at least I'll know to stop looking for a solution.

 

[m0nkey_]

If you've passed through the controller to the FreeNAS VM, and said controller is in IT mode, then you just use smartctl like any other.

 

[Mirfster]

Since you are talking about ESXi here, I would say have a look at this:
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/m...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2040405

 

[Black Ninja]

If you've passed through the controller to the FreeNAS VM, and said controller is in IT mode, then you just use smartctl like any other.

That's how you present drives for Freenas VM - passed through controller* in IT mode, then all looks native to VM and you can read everything from drives, but I was asking for the controller(megaraid) that is hosting your ESXI hypervisor how you read the smart from those drives ?



*You can flash to IR or IT mode only the HBA/RAID controllers like LSI 9211. A Full hardware raid card like LSI 9270 (megaraid) you can't flash to IT mode.

 

[Black Ninja]

Since you are talking about ESXi here, I would say have a look at this:
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/m...nguage=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2040405

That will work if you have your drives directly attached to the MB, but if you have a raid card, then check what it says there :

"Note: External FC/iSCSI LUNs or virtual disks from a RAID controller might not report a S.M.A.R.T. status."

 

[Mirfster]

That will work if you have your drives directly attached to the MB, but if you have a raid card, then check what it says there

Does anybody know if it's even possible to get a SMART info about a drive behind megaraid controller with esxi installed on it ?

I was under the impression that you have ESXi installed on drive(s) that are attached to a MegaRaid Controller? Have you actually tried the commands to see what results you get?

 

[Black Ninja]

I was under the impression that you have ESXi installed on drive(s) that are attached to a MegaRaid Controller? Have you actually tried the commands to see what results you get?

You are absolutely correct.
And I am sure you know this, but the way it works is: mega-raid card sees 2 physical SSD drives and combine them in a new virtual drive (raid1) that is then this new drive is presented to the OS (ESXI or any OS). So ESXI sees the virtual drive, it has it's ID and you can run the command on the virtual drive but the return values are "0" on all lines.

 

[Black Ninja]

I know I always ask the hard questions, but if it was easy I would figure it out already.:)


P.S. I know I am not the only one who is using ESXI with megaraid card, but Am I the only one who cares about the drives health ?!

 

[Mirfster]

I would think that by using a Hardware Raid Controller you are somewhat at the mercy of its monitoring. Perhaps look into MegaCLI to see if there is an option to get some drive info. Not sure if it will provide the same depth though.

 

[Black Ninja]

Perhaps you are right , but I wanted to make sure before I gave up. Mega CLI is such a craziness, it's hard enough to type the commands properly, not that I gave up looking.


P.S. The reason that makes me think is possible cause if I install Windows on bare metal , and then fire up my favorite HDSENTINEL software I can see the drive full SMART info on all drives. So there is a way the software can get that from the controller , so it should be a way in ESXI theoretically.

 

[joeschmuck]

Are you able to still see the status of the two drives in your mirror on vCenter? For myself I really think I need to purchase a new RAID card because the drivers just don't play well with my RAID card.

So I tried to get the SMART data from my mirrored drives and all I get back is "Error getting Smart Parameters: CANNOT open device". I have a separate hard drive attached to the motherboard and I can get the SMART data from it just fine via ESXi. And my RAID card is in IR mode because I desired true boot mirroring, something you can't get otherwise.

Here is the output for the device in question:

Code:

naa.600508e000000000da4dc918184d2e01
  Display Name: LSI Serial Attached SCSI Disk (naa.600508e000000000da4dc918184d2e01)
  Has Settable Display Name: true
  Size: 243186
  Device Type: Direct-Access
  Multipath Plugin: NMP
  Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508e000000000da4dc918184d2e01
  Vendor: LSI
  Model: Logical Volume
  Revision: 3000
  SCSI Level: 6
  Is Pseudo: false
  Status: degraded
  Is RDM Capable: true
  Is Local: false
  Is Removable: false
  Is SSD: true
  Is VVOL PE: false
  Is Offline: false
  Is Perennially Reserved: false
  Queue Full Sample Size: 0
  Queue Full Threshold: 0
  Thin Provisioning Status: unknown
  Attached Filters:
  VAAI Status: unknown
  Other UIDs: vml.0200000000600508e000000000da4dc918184d2e014c6f67696361
  Is Shared Clusterwide: true
  Is Local SAS Device: false
  Is SAS: true
  Is USB: false
  Is Boot USB Device: false
  Is Boot Device: true
  Device Max Queue Depth: 128
  No of outstanding IOs with competing worlds: 32
  Drive Type: logical
  RAID Level: RAID1
  Number of Physical Drives: 2
  Protection Enabled: false
  PI Activated: false
  PI Type: 0
  PI Protection Mask: NO PROTECTION
  Supported Guard Types: NO GUARD SUPPORT
  DIX Enabled: false
  DIX Guard Type: NO GUARD SUPPORT
  Emulated DIX/DIF Enabled: false

 

[Mirfster]

Status: degraded

Rut-Roh...

 

[joeschmuck]

Thanks for pointing that out to me, I didn't even see it. I wonder if it's even valid. Guess I'll be checking that out now. Crap, I was hoping to go to town today. Well I have a complete backup of that data should things go south.

 

[joeschmuck]

So I just got into the controller and all looks okay. I think the status is a false indication. The mirrored drives are a pair of 256 SSDs. I started a consistency check and got to 5% before I couldn't live without the internet. Maybe I'll kick off that test again before I go to bed and then wire up my emergency router so internet will be available for the family.

Soon I'll be removing the RAID card and hopefully installing a new one because when I reboot my machine, the Boot ROM isn't loaded. It only loads from a complete power off. This means that when I reboot, the drives are not seen and I'm dead in the water, especially if I do it remotely. This is a big problem that I need to fix but parting with cash seems to be difficult when I'm second guessing having an ESXi server as my only system. I'm now thinking I like the idea of a separate small system for my firewall. I just don't want to open my wallet right now.

 

[Mirfster]

I'm now thinking I like the idea of a separate small system for my firewall.

+1, I prefer that to be its own device to avoid a "domino" affect.

 

[joeschmuck]

Placing everything into one machine was the only way I could reduce about 40+ watts of power. Now I need to rethink things. I really like Sophos but too bad I can't put this into my WiFi Router like DD-WRT.

 

[Black Ninja]

Placing everything into one machine was the only way I could reduce about 40+ watts of power. Now I need to rethink things. I really like Sophos but too bad I can't put this into my WiFi Router like DD-WRT.

I guess you are coming around

What is the most convenient way usually take always from everything else that could be desired.

If you like Sophos you can just build a low power machine that will burn 15-20W and will have standalone router way more powerful than WiFi Router like DD-WRT and way more flexible to upgrade and as a bonus your internet will not have to stop when you stop esxi hyper-visor.

I was so tempted to do that myself (router as VM) it soooo convenient to deploy, but reading around stop me from doing it and now I am so glad I did.

 

[Black Ninja]

I just don't want to open my wallet right now.

I said it before and I'll say it again: OPEN IT JOE, OPEN IT


P.S. On a serious note, I guess in comes down how much you want the "nice toy" and how much you rather have extra money in your pocket. Whatever it's heavier feeling that's what will take over. Well I know in my case what it is

 

[Black Ninja]

I finally finish my hypervisor:
I got LSI 9271-8i with supercap. Disks are 2x Intel DC S3500 120GB boot volume(RAID1) and then for datastore I got 2x Intel DC S3700 800GB in RAID1 and I couldn't be happier. I have 4 more ports for drives, but I will not use them for now.

 

[joeschmuck]

f you like Sophos you can just build a low power machine that will burn 15-20W

I think I'd rather use one of my older machines over buying a new machine. I know even a cheap machine will still cost a lot.