Read smartctl data using LSI Logic Megaraid SAS 9261-8I Single

TrueNAS General
1

I am trying to read the smart data from a sas disk but i am unable to.
Disk 1
$sudo smartctl -a -d scsi /dev/sda
[sudo] password for kali:
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.16.8+kali-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor: LSI
Product: MR9261-8i
Revision: 2.13
Compliance: SPC-3
User Capacity: 5,999,999,057,920 bytes [5.99 TB]
Logical block size: 512 bytes
Physical block size: 4096 bytes
Logical Unit id: 0x600605b006ccbcb0307bf07c8105e4a5
Serial number: 00a5e405817cf07b30b0bccc06b00506
Device type: disk
Local Time is: Mon Oct 13 09:55:57 2025 EDT
SMART support is: Unavailable - device lacks SMART capability.

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
Current Drive Temperature: 0 C
Drive Trip Temperature: 0 C

Error Counter logging not supported

Device does not support Self Test logging

Disk 2
$sudo smartctl -a -d megaraid,16 /dev/bus/0
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.16.8+kali-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor: IBM-XIV
Product: ST6000NM0054 D5
Revision: EC6D
Compliance: SPC-4
User Capacity: 6,001,175,122,432 bytes [6.00 TB]
Logical block size: 512 bytes
Physical block size: 4096 bytes
Formatted with type 2 protection
8 bytes of protection information per logical block
LU is fully provisioned
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Form Factor: 3.5 inches
Logical Unit id: 0x5000c500982eeba3
Serial number: S4D17DE50000K702QHSR
Device type: disk
Transport protocol: SAS (SPL-4)
Local Time is: Mon Oct 13 10:11:09 2025 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Temperature Warning: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Health Status: OK

Grown defects during certification
Total blocks reassigned during format
Total new blocks reassigned
Power on minutes since format
Current Drive Temperature: 43 C
Drive Trip Temperature: 65 C

Accumulated power on time, hours:minutes 40159:53
Elements in grown defect list: 0

Error counter log:
Errors Corrected by Total Correction Gigabytes Total
ECC rereads/ errors algorithm processed uncorrected
fast | delayed rewrites corrected invocations [10^9 bytes] errors
read: 775096274 0 0 775096274 0 286409.919 0
write: 0 0 4 4 4 159055.006 0
verify: 441507756 0 0 441507756 0 1325.052 0

Non-medium error count: 20

SMART Self-test log
Num Test Status segment LifeTime LBA_first_err [SK ASC ASQ]
Description number (hours)
1 Background short Completed - 40157 - [- - -]
2 Background long Completed - 40143 - [- - -]
3 Background long Completed - 108 - [- - -]
4 Background short Completed - 94 - [- - -]
5 Background short Aborted (by user command) - 42 - [- - -]

Long (extended) Self-test duration: 38632 seconds [10.7 hours]

Those are the result from 2 different disks.

2

You are close, try smartctl -a -d megaraid,N /dev/sdX for disk 1 also as you did for Disk 2.

3

oh i know but it won’t give me the type of information i want. Heres an example from a sata disk

sudo smartctl -a -d sat /dev/sdd
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.16.8+kali-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Blue Serial ATA
Device Model: WDC WD2500AAJS-75M0A0
Serial Number: WD-WCAV26058104
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 1575340f0
Firmware Version: 02.03E02
User Capacity: 250,000,000,000 bytes [250 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 2.5, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is: Mon Oct 13 12:25:31 2025 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x85) Offline data collection activity
was aborted by an interrupting command from host.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 5460) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 67) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x3037) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

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     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0*
*  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   143   132   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       3808*
*  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1139*
*  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0*
*  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0*
*  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       89081*
* 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0*
* 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0*
* 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1070*
*192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       126*
*193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       1139*
*194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   102   091   000    Old_age   Always       -       41*
*196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0*
*197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0*
*198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0*
*199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       1840*
*200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0*
*240 Head_Flying_Hours       0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       84249*
*241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       90503587807*
*242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       241482953015*

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 23545 -
2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 5301 -
3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 0 -

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.

The above only provides legacy SMART information - try ‘smartctl -x’ for more

4

I realize there is a difference, however I personally have not found a way to obtain the exact same data in the same format. I might if I had a SCSI drive to play with, but I’m not ever certain they have the same data.

Did you try using the -x, vice -a?
You can also try adding --json=u right after the -x to pull the data in the json format. You are bound to see more data this way.

Let us know what you find out.

5

Damn. I noticed the same issue on the truenas server i inherited. I have a bunch of disks sitting by my desk. I am not sure which disks are usable. How do you determine if a disk is useful or not.

6

This is a consequence of this card not being able to work in IT/HBA mode, right?

While my SAS drives don’t show the same kind of SMART attributes list that a SATA drive exposes, they do show more specifics than the distilled output of that MegaRaid setup.

7

It definitely shows more but its not what i was expecting. I hoped to get as much information as possibe.

8

What attributes does it show you?

9

The main thing to do is test the drive. Run a SMART Long/Extended test on it. If that will not start, run Bad Blocks. These will tell you if the drive has not failed.

1 Like
10

Here’s an example:

# smartctl --all /dev/sdc
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.1.74-production+truenas] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor:               HGST
Product:              HUH721212AL5204
Revision:             NE00
Compliance:           SPC-4
User Capacity:        11,756,399,230,976 bytes [11.7 TB]
Logical block size:   512 bytes
Physical block size:  4096 bytes
Formatted with type 2 protection
8 bytes of protection information per logical block
LU is fully provisioned
Rotation Rate:        7200 rpm
Form Factor:          3.5 inches
Logical Unit id:      0x5000cca270146d2c
Serial number:        8HGB77RH
Device type:          disk
Transport protocol:   SAS (SPL-4)
Local Time is:        Sat Apr 20 19:59:33 2024 CEST
SMART support is:     Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is:     Enabled
Temperature Warning:  Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Health Status: OK

Grown defects during certification <not available>
Total blocks reassigned during format <not available>
Total new blocks reassigned <not available>
Power on minutes since format <not available>
Current Drive Temperature:     27 C
Drive Trip Temperature:        60 C

Accumulated power on time, hours:minutes 40877:11
Manufactured in week 28 of year 2018
Specified cycle count over device lifetime:  50000
Accumulated start-stop cycles:  21
Specified load-unload count over device lifetime:  600000
Accumulated load-unload cycles:  1583
Elements in grown defect list: 0

Vendor (Seagate Cache) information
  Blocks sent to initiator = 43773940903968768

Error counter log:
           Errors Corrected by           Total   Correction     Gigabytes    Total
               ECC          rereads/    errors   algorithm      processed    uncorrected
           fast | delayed   rewrites  corrected  invocations   [10^9 bytes]  errors
read:          0       14         0        14   14144948     394329.065           0
write:         0        0         0         0    4255126     196259.923           0
verify:        0        0         0         0      49266          0.000           0

Non-medium error count:        0

No Self-tests have been logged

It’s similar to the output of your Disk 2.

Note the last section with the ECC log and especially the section before that with the number of elements in the defect list and such. I’m aware that I am not running smart tests, that’s fine for the use-case of this drive.

Also note that this is an old smartctl output from before I reformatted the drive to 4k and removed the type 2 protection. The system the drive is in is currently in the cold part of its cold backup-duty.

2 Likes
11

@neofusion i bought another card and have just put it in IT-Mode (the card used to run those two test died on me)

12

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor: IBM-XIV
Product: ST6000NM0054 D5
Revision: EC6D
Compliance: SPC-4
User Capacity: 6,001,175,122,432 bytes [6.00 TB]
Logical block size: 512 bytes
Physical block size: 4096 bytes
Formatted with type 2 protection
8 bytes of protection information per logical block
LU is fully provisioned
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Form Factor: 3.5 inches
Logical Unit id: 0x5000c5009849d04f
Serial number: S4D155ZG0000K705JJ29
Device type: disk
Transport protocol: SAS (SPL-4)
Local Time is: Sat Oct 18 11:11:37 2025 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
Temperature Warning: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Health Status: OK

Grown defects during certification
Total blocks reassigned during format
Total new blocks reassigned
Power on minutes since format
Current Drive Temperature: 43 C
Drive Trip Temperature: 65 C

Accumulated power on time, hours:minutes 2041:28
Elements in grown defect list: 0

Error counter log:
           Errors Corrected by           Total   Correction     Gigabytes    Total
               ECC          rereads/    errors   algorithm      processed    uncorrected
           fast | delayed   rewrites  corrected  invocations   [10^9 bytes]  errors
read:   70389703        0         0  70389703          0      30628.262           0
write:         0        0         2         2          2      43806.928           0
verify:  1956820        0         0   1956820          0        194.293           0

Non-medium error count: 4

13

Hello,

Honestly, I’d try the scan options as seen in smartctl man pages.

   --scan Scans  for  devices and prints each device name, device type and protocol ([ATA] or [SCSI]) info.  May be used in conjunction with '-d TYPE' to restrict the scan to a specific TYPE.  See
          also info about platform specific device scan and the DEVICESCAN directive on smartd(8) man page.

   --scan-open
          Same as --scan, but also tries to open each device before printing device info.  The device open may change the device type due to autodetection (see also '-d test').

I think I’d start with that. And as seen from my small system, the results may differ

root@truenas[~]# 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/sdd -d scsi # /dev/sdd, SCSI device
/dev/sde -d scsi # /dev/sde, SCSI device
/dev/sdf -d scsi # /dev/sdf, SCSI device
/dev/sdg -d scsi # /dev/sdg, SCSI device
/dev/sdh -d scsi # /dev/sdh, SCSI device
/dev/sdi -d scsi # /dev/sdi, SCSI device
/dev/sdj -d scsi # /dev/sdj, SCSI device
/dev/sdk -d scsi # /dev/sdk, SCSI device
/dev/sdl -d scsi # /dev/sdl, SCSI device
/dev/sdm -d sat # /dev/sdm [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdn -d scsi # /dev/sdn, SCSI device
/dev/sdo -d scsi # /dev/sdo, SCSI device
/dev/sdp -d scsi # /dev/sdp, SCSI device
root@truenas[~]# smartctl --scan-open
/dev/sda -d sat # /dev/sda [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdb -d sat # /dev/sdb [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdc -d sat # /dev/sdc [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdd -d sat # /dev/sdd [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sde -d sat # /dev/sde [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdf -d sat # /dev/sdf [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdg -d sat # /dev/sdg [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdh -d sat # /dev/sdh [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdi -d sat # /dev/sdi [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdj -d sat # /dev/sdj [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdk -d sat # /dev/sdk [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdl -d sat # /dev/sdl [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdm -d sat # /dev/sdm [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdn -d sat # /dev/sdn [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdo -d sat # /dev/sdo [SAT], ATA device
/dev/sdp -d sat # /dev/sdp [SAT], ATA device
root@truenas[~]#

As you can see my /dev/sdm device gives differing output. I’d then try the way it shows up in the scan output.
Also, what you get back will depend on what the underlying device actually is. SATA and SAS are not the same, as I’m sure you’re aware, one being ATA based and the other being SCSI; because of that the contents of the SMART output (the detailed output) will not be the same. There are things in the ATA registers that are not in the SCSI registers, and vice versa.

If that doesn’t help any, or if I’m going totally off topic somehow, my next question would be from your earlier statement:

What exactly are you looking for? I don’t think I see anything that specifically describes that.

–Erich