Disk Identification Utility for Broadcom/LSI/Avago HBA Cards

[Johnny Fartpants]

This isn't new and Im sure like me lots of you have already been using this utility for years but thought it might be worth a mention as it does seem to crop up from time-to-time.

If you happen to be using a Broadcom/LSI/Avago HBA card in your setup then you may want to make use of the sas2ircu or sas3ircu utility (depending on your card) which can aid in identifying drives in their physical slots.

There are a few different ways you can use the utility but I thought I'd share how I use it.

If I need to identify a failed or failing drive then I will often know the corresponding da number so in that case I can run smartctl -a /dev/da0 to get the serial number of that drive.

Then I can then run sas3ircu 0 display | grep serialnumber -A2 -B8 and that will return to me the drives physical location in the chassis. Locations are identified by their expander and then slot so for example on my system da0 (as it is now) happens to sit in 2:0.

Now this alone may not be that helpful but now we have that info we can turn the light on by using this cmd sas3icru 0 locate 2:0 ON and a light will appear on that slot. The cmd sas3ircu 0 locate 2:0 OFF will turn the light off when you are finished.

You can also simply run sas3ircu 0 display to get a full list of all your connected drives and their location within the system along with some other info.

sas3ircu list will list all Broadcom/LSI/Avago HBAs in your system.

Like I said Im sure this is bread and butter to some of you but it may be helpful to others that were not aware of this.

 

[danb35]

A somewhat more convenient piece of software is sasutil, because you don't need to know the expander and slot--you can do sasutil locate da3 on and it will flash the light for wherever da3 happens to be.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Thanks @Johnny Fartpants. The large-capacity cages I'm using don't have lights and fancy stuff.

Thanks @danb35, the 8-bay cages do have fancy stuff.

 

[Johnny Fartpants]

sasutil locate da3

That cmd doesn't seem to work on my systems.

 

[danb35]

...which is why it's good to have options.

 

[Johnny Fartpants]

Fair point hence why I was targeting this post at people with Broadcom/LSI/Avago HBA Cards

 

[HoneyBadger]

That cmd doesn't seem to work on my systems.

That's because the command is actually spelled sesutil although it does require your enclosure to speak the protocol (SCSI Enclosure Services)

 

[danb35]

I was targeting this post at people with Broadcom/LSI/Avago HBA Cards

...which I also have. But going from memory meant I got the command wrong, leaving the mushroom-eater to correct me.

 

[Johnny Fartpants]

Cool, thanks all, I'll give that a try.