WMI Class for querying RAID information

[Sandeep Manjrekar]

Hi,

I am designing an Inventory module for all the servers using WMI scripting. RAID is configured on all servers.
I had 2 queries:-
1. How do I query the actual size of the HDD installed?
2. How do I query which RAID is configured

[David Lethe · Accepted solution]

Any particular RAID controller? Is this software or hardware-based RAID? In general, if it is hardware RAID then you need some add-on software that will facilitate such queries. That is because the job of the RAID controller is to present a single logical disk drive to the OS (and BIOS) rather than individual disk drives.

If it is software RAID then there are some WMI calls you can do to query NTFS volumes.

[Sandeep Manjrekar]

Hi David,

Thanks for the response.

Any particular RAID controller? RAID 1+0

Is this software or hardware-based RAID? Hardware RAID

In general, if it is hardware RAID then you need some add-on software that will facilitate such queries. - Can you recommend any external software?

If you could help me with this my Inventory module will be complete as i am designing it using Windows Powershell.

Thanks once again!!!

[David Lethe]

Hardware RAID controllers ALL use vendor-specific propriatary APIs, as there is no ANSI-defined specification. (Well, they tried but none of the vendors were willing to adopt it for numerous business-related and technical reasons .. but I digress)

As such, if the controller vendor does not supply a built-in WMI library (a few vendors such as IBM & DELL have them, but they are for products that people don't traditionally put on HP systems) ... then you need to just try a different path to acquiring state & configuration information and forget WMI.
If you had 3WARE RAID controllers, then you can encapsulate their command-line program to get what you want and parse it via your powershell.

I didn't want to necessarily plug anything, but my company sells and writes storage diagnostic software, and we have a command-line tool for under $100 that can query and monitor many hardware RAID chipsets, including the LSI-based chips that HP uses on systems ranging from the Itanium-based Integrity line, blades, and others.. However, if you are using something like an adaptec-based RAID, then you can interface with something they offer for free download.

So in general, remember that if you want to query health of logical disks, configuration, whether RAID set is degraded or rebuilding, etc ... you will never find any native way to get such information. It is all vendor specific, and you need software from the vendor for your appropriate O/S, or software from a company that has non-disclosure arrangements with hardware vendors, and access to their private APIs, for purposes of providing independently-developed diagnostic/management software.

If you want to look at a manual http://www.santools.com/smart/unix/manual (don't worry about unix in the path, the software is also ported to a dozen O/S's and platforms including Windows). Also not all controllers and capibility is documented, but this gives you an idea.

I guess if you want, you can take this offline. Again, I apologize if this turns into a pitch, I was more interested in educating people that hardware RAID, by design, masks the health and state of the physical disks, and it is all vendor-unique, so don't waste your time looking for native microsoft features to get what you want. Even Microsoft doesn't have access to the SDKs and APIs that the RAID controllers and their partners use to design storage subsystems and drivers with.

david@santools.como



Since you are running

[Sandeep Manjrekar]

Hi David,

I understand what you are trying to suggest. Microsoft is unable to provide WMI class for querying a hardward RAID. It is vendor specific and in my case, I will have to check if there is anything that I can find on HP to help me out with this. I beleive I will have to start working on hpacucli.exe (HP Array Configuration Utiliy) command line tool and parse out the information from it.

Anyway thanks for your help.

Regards

[David Lethe]

What controller, do you have, exactly? HP bundles our entry-level predictive failure / diagnostic software with their business class PCs in Asia, and I'm working on adding code to drill into more embedded RAID controllers. The latest unreleased code works fine on the controllers in the 64-bit integrity server and bladeserver systems, but we have not gotten around to testing the systems you probably have.

Contact me offline if you wish and I'll give you a free license for testing purposes, as long as you agree to send some dumps and such to make sure everything works fine.