How to access S.M.A.R.T. values when using RAID and Intel Matrix Storage?

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We have a RAID 5 array using Intel Matrix Storage (i.e. a motherboard based RAID). One of the hard drives has started to make a grinding noise, and the array is currently rebuilding.

We'd like to interrogate the S.M.A.R.T. values on the Seagate drives, but for some reason none of the programs we've tried have been able to read the S.M.A.R.T. values.

Is there any technique for reading the S.M.A.R.T. values out so we can tell which drive is on its last legs?

Contango

Posted 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Reputation: 1 099

Most of the Smartctl diagnostic software for windows supports reading the smartctl of the harddrives behind the raid array. – Trevor Boyd Smith – 2016-09-14T12:42:40.197

Possible duplicate of How can I read my hard drive's SMART status in Windows 7?

– Trevor Boyd Smith – 2016-09-14T12:42:53.553

What programs did you try? – digitxp – 2011-09-02T15:06:51.080

HDDlife and AShampoo HDD Control. I think the problem is that all of the drives appear as one large drive thats 6GB in size (its RAID 5). Its almost like we need something to bypass the RAID controller and peer directly into the hard drive controller itself to work out which hard drive is on its last legs. – Contango – 2011-09-02T15:10:03.167

Answers

4

If the Intel Matrix Storage Manager doesn't tell you about the drive's (SMART) status, then perhaps (or, as well) just use Seagate's (bootable) Seatools utility to diagnose the Seagate drives.

You simply have to set the BIOS from 'RAID' to 'IDE', and the drives should be visible as individual drives to the bootable Seatools media.

Once you've used it to diagnose the drive, turn the RAID back on in the BIOS and you should be back the way you were (RAID configuration will remain). At that point you can plan to swap the faulty drive (if needed).

Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007

Posted 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Reputation: 103 763

2Thanks, good to know that this is possible. I'd be a bit hesitant to try this out - those RAID arrays are so fragile that if you switch the computer on with one of the drives unplugged, wait 30 seconds, then plug that drive in again, then switch it on again, it wants to do a full rebuild, which takes 10 hours. This should be totally unnecessary, as the drive was never written to. – Contango – 2011-09-09T16:10:27.783

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In my brief reading, it looks like this may be a common issue with that controller. Try giving smartmontools a shot. It's supposed to have some experimental support for the Matrix controller.

2011-02-04: We added experimental support for disks behind Intel Matrix RAID driver on Windows. Please report your test results to the smartmontools support mailinglist.

Use /dev/csmi0,X as a device name to access SMART info of individual disks, e.g. like this:

smartctl.exe -a /dev/csmi0,0

OldWolf

Posted 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Reputation: 2 293

My array is for data (not OS) so had to use /dev/csmi0,1 etc, for other disks. Thanks. +1 – Felipe Alvarez – 2014-12-23T00:44:25.003

Tried experimental support, it didn't seem to work at all. Thanks for the tip, anyway. – Contango – 2011-10-29T16:30:19.087

1Worked for me, Intel Matrix Storage Console 8.9.2.1002, ICH10 chipset, smartmontools 5.43-0-20120-0620-r3567 – ChrisWue – 2012-06-27T21:20:47.810

+1 Worked for me, smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573, Intel P67 Express Chipset (6 Series PCH), iaStor.sys v 10.1.0.1008 (11/6/2010) (Intel Rapid Storage Technology). – Jonathon Reinhart – 2013-08-28T20:00:56.870

14

hddguardian works great with Intel Matrix RAID controller, essentially it's a GUI for smartctl.

Erus

Posted 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Reputation: 141

This one's a winner for me. Argus Monitor was ok but hddguardian gives very understandable info about all the data and thresholds – nevster – 2015-01-28T10:20:36.140

Also works for my HDDs connected through the "LSI Adapter, SAS3 3008 Fury -StorPort". So, other RAID controllers might be suppported as well. – i3v – 2016-05-10T07:04:08.217

works for me as well. raid 0 ssd evo ty for software name – MonsterMMORPG – 2016-06-27T11:18:58.640

This looks great, but unfortunately the author received too many harassing complaints reported as "issues" and decided to shut the project down. – jimp – 2017-06-05T04:43:28.613

3

Argus Monitor shows SMART info for drives behind Intel Matrix RAID controller:

Version 1.8.17 (01/06/2011): Support for Intel Matrix RAID controllers (ICHx chipsets).

haimg

Posted 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Reputation: 19 503

1

smartmontools worked well for me.

I have an Asus motherboard with Intel ICH10R RAID controller. Two of the HDs are in a RAID-1 configuration, and another 2 are regular non-RAID setup. I can query any of them with smartmontools.

The command line interface is pretty easy to use and can be scripted easily.

c:\>smartctl --scan
/dev/sda -d scsi # /dev/sda, SCSI device
/dev/sdb -d scsi # /dev/sdb, SCSI device
/dev/sdc -d scsi # /dev/sdc, SCSI device
/dev/csmi0,0 -d ata # /dev/csmi0,0, ATA device
/dev/csmi0,2 -d ata # /dev/csmi0,2, ATA device
/dev/csmi0,3 -d ata # /dev/csmi0,3, ATA device
/dev/csmi0,4 -d ata # /dev/csmi0,4, ATA device
/dev/csmi0,5 -d ata # /dev/csmi0,5, ATA device

This shows you the list of devices it detected. In my case, the 5 /dev/csmi0,x devices corresponds to the various SATA ports on the motherboard.

You can query any of them easily:

c:\>smartctl -a /dev/csmi0,2
smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-win7-sp1] (sf-6.3-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     SAMSUNG SpinPoint F2 EG
Device Model:     SAMSUNG HD154UI
Serial Number:    XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
LU WWN Device Id: X XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX
Firmware Version: 1AG01118
User Capacity:    1,500,301,910,016 bytes [1.50 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA/ATAPI-7, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 3b
Local Time is:    Thu Apr 16 21:59:25 2015 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
...

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   100   100   015    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   070   070   007    Pre-fail  Always       -       9700
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   098   098   050    Old_age   Always       -       2506
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   100   100   015    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0025   100   100   037    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   050    Old_age   Always       -       14655
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0033   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   100   018    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   098   098   050    Old_age   Always       -       2500
 13 Read_Soft_Error_Rate    0x000e   100   100   014    Old_age   Always       -       0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0033   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       2
188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   067   061   034    Old_age   Always       -       33 (Min/Max 13/33)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   065   060   034    Old_age   Always       -       35 (Min/Max 13/35)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   100   100   026    Old_age   Always       -       767683535
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   050    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   018    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   048    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   100   100   062    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x000a   100   099   010    Old_age   Always       -       3
201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate    0x000a   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

ID #5 and #198 are of particular interest. There was an interest Google study that indicated they are somewhat good indicators as to when the drive is about to fail.

raychi

Posted 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Reputation: 944

1

The smartmon tools worked for me as well, but only for the mirrored drives. Would not read the data from my Intel SSD... the Intel SSD Toolbox does this though.

  • Intel BX58SO motherboard
  • Firmware/BIOS RAID 1 (mirrored)
  • Drives: Seagate ST3500320NS
  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit

I also found that the AIDA64 software (formerly Everest) works. Easer to read than raw data, but this tool isn't free. Reads the S.M.A.R.T. data from both the SSD and mirrored spinners

As others have noted, the WikiPedia article on S.M.A.R.T. is well worth a read.

Kelly Smith

Posted 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Reputation: 11

Asked: 2011-09-02T14:53:40.530

Viewed: 46 560 times

Active: 2016-03-23T12:31:35.477