Smartmontools on software RAID

Smartmontools on software RAID

[Anuj Goel]

Hi,

Can smartmontools be used with software RAID ?
I see that it has support for RAID, but that is based on the Hardware
controller.

-Anuj

Re: Smartmontools on software RAID

[Miles Fidelman]

Anuj Goel wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Can smartmontools be used with software RAID ?
> I see that it has support for RAID, but that is based on the Hardware
> controller.
>
>
Well... I use it every day to monitor the disks under my RAID arrays.  
All you have to do is point it at the hardware device (e.g., /dev/hda), 
not the raid device.

The RAID arrays I monitor with mdadm.

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra

Re: Smartmontools on software RAID

[Johannes Truschnigg]

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On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 05:15:47PM -0500, Anuj Goel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Can smartmontools be used with software RAID ?

Yes of course, as long as the member-devices/disks that your md-RAID array
consists of support SMART themselves. The resulting block device(s) that
implement RAID on top of these devices don't report any SMART
attributes/values, however.

> I see that it has support for RAID, but that is based on the Hardware
> controller.

That kind of support in smartmontools for a given controller model and/or
controller driver is only relevant if the "hardware"-RAID controller abstracts
away the physical disks (by providing the arrays its user or administrator
defined - in the controller BIOS or a special setup utility - as ordinary
Linux block devices), and does not export these individual drives as standard
ATA or SCSI devices (which can support SMART) to the kernel. I've also seen
controllers with drivers that do both - you get your array(s) as defined in
the controllers setup tool, and also a set of SCSI generic devices (/dev/sg*)
that you can use to run smartctl against.

-- 
with best regards:
- Johannes Truschnigg ( johannes@truschnigg.info )

www:   http://johannes.truschnigg.info/
phone: +43 650 2 133337
xmpp:  johannes@truschnigg.info

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