Update 8 June 2009
Be sure you to check out some of my research including Understanding your RAID Configuration and Understanding PERC RAID Controllers.
Last week I got caught thinking a MySQL production system wasn’t configured with RAID when it actually was. The following is the Linux dmesg output of 3 different client MySQL servers, where the H/W is all the same, a Dell 2950.
In the first two cases you will see individual references to the internal disks, however in the third you do not. This threw me, but as Matt Yonkovit correctly pointed out to me, the sizes are not standard drive sizes.
A deeper level of understanding via CLI tools, or actually console output would appear necessary to understand the disk configuration in the future.
Nov 2007 – Dell 2950 Running RHEL 4. Note the individual SEAGATE drive details and single sda (70G) and sdb(300G)
scsi0 : LSI Logic SAS based MegaRAID driver Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST973451SS Rev: SM04 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST973451SS Rev: SM04 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST973451SS Rev: SM04 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST973451SS Rev: SM04 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 usb 4-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2 usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice hub 4-1:1.0: USB hub found hub 4-1:1.0: 2 ports detected Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST973451SS Rev: SM04 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST973451SS Rev: SM04 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST973451SS Rev: SM04 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: DP Model: BACKPLANE Rev: 1.05 Type: Enclosure ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: DELL Model: PERC 5/i Rev: 1.03 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 SCSI device sda: 142082048 512-byte hdwr sectors (72746 MB) sda: Write Protect is off sda: Mode Sense: 1f 00 10 08 SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through w/ FUA SCSI device sda: 142082048 512-byte hdwr sectors (72746 MB) sda: Write Protect is off sda: Mode Sense: 1f 00 10 08 SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through w/ FUA sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 > sd 0:2:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda Vendor: DELL Model: PERC 5/i Rev: 1.03 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 SCSI device sdb: 568328192 512-byte hdwr sectors (290984 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 1f 00 10 08 SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write through w/ FUA SCSI device sdb: 568328192 512-byte hdwr sectors (290984 MB) sdb: Write Protect is off sdb: Mode Sense: 1f 00 10 08 SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write through w/ FUA
Oct 2008 – Dell 2950 running Ubuntu 8.04. Note the individual SEAGATE drive details and single sda (600GB)
[ 88.069326] scsi0 : LSI Logic SAS based MegaRAID driver [ 88.087755] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access SEAGATE ST3300656SS HS09 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [ 88.104931] scsi 0:0:1:0: Direct-Access SEAGATE ST3300656SS HS09 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [ 88.122079] scsi 0:0:2:0: Direct-Access SEAGATE ST3300656SS HS09 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [ 88.139064] scsi 0:0:3:0: Direct-Access SEAGATE ST3300656SS HS09 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [ 88.205346] scsi1 : ata_piix [ 88.205387] scsi2 : ata_piix [ 88.205409] ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xfc00 irq 14 [ 88.205411] ata2: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xfc08 irq 15 [ 88.240207] scsi 0:0:32:0: Enclosure DP BACKPLANE 1.05 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [ 88.252370] scsi 0:2:0:0: Direct-Access DELL PERC 6/i 1.21 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5 [ 88.263532] scsi 0:0:32:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 13 [ 88.263547] scsi 0:2:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 [ 88.265390] Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods [ 88.265671] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] 1169686528 512-byte hardware sectors (598880 MB) [ 88.265700] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off [ 88.265702] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 1f 00 10 08 [ 88.265771] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA [ 88.266135] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] 1169686528 512-byte hardware sectors (598880 MB) [ 88.266173] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off [ 88.266175] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 1f 00 10 08 [ 88.266232] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA [ 88.266240] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 [ 88.270085] sd 0:2:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
May 2009 – Dell 2950 running RHEL 5. Note no individual drive details, only partition sizes for sda (300G) and sdb (600G).
scsi0 : LSI Logic SAS based MegaRAID driver Vendor: DP Model: BACKPLANE Rev: 1.05 Type: Enclosure ANSI SCSI revision: 05 Vendor: DELL Model: PERC 5/i Rev: 1.03 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 SCSI device sda: 584843264 512-byte hdwr sectors (299440 MB) SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through SCSI device sda: 584843264 512-byte hdwr sectors (299440 MB) SCSI device sda: drive cache: write through sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 sda6 sda7 sda8 sda9 sda10 sda11 > Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 2, id 0, lun 0 Vendor: DELL Model: PERC 5/i Rev: 1.03 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 SCSI device sdb: 1169686528 512-byte hdwr sectors (598880 MB) SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write through SCSI device sdb: 1169686528 512-byte hdwr sectors (598880 MB) SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write through sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3
Tom Hotchkiss says
Hi Ronald-
Here’s another clue – note this line:
Vendor: DELL Model: PERC 5/i Rev: 1.03
PERC = “Power Edge RAID Controller” and 5/i means 5th generation, internal (as opposed to external) controller. Of course, not everyone knows Dell’s product naming and numbering scheme for IO controllers off the top of their head
Jeremy Cole says
Hi Ronald,
Use OpenManage (omreport etc.) instead: http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/
This will give you the following output:
[root@etna ~]# omreport storage vdisk
List of Virtual Disks in the System
Controller PERC 5/i Integrated (Embedded)
ID : 0
Status : Ok
Name : mirror0
State : Ready
Progress : Not Applicable
Layout : RAID-1
Size : 931.00 GB (999653638144 bytes)
Device Name : /dev/sda
Type : SATA
Read Policy : No Read Ahead
Write Policy : Write Back
Cache Policy : Not Applicable
Stripe Element Size : 64 KB
Disk Cache Policy : Enabled
Mark Schoonover says
Psst, Ronald, It’s SEAGATE, not SEGATE
Christopher Grello says
You can also use the MegaCLI utility to query the PERC5 (and PERC6) controllers. This URL is quite helpful as the tool can be tricky to figure out.
http://tools.rapidsoft.de/perc/
– Chris