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Some notes on ESXi and SMART information from HDD/SSD devices

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/10

For my link archive:

  1. [WayBack] VMware ESXi S.M.A.R.T Health Monitoring | ESX Virtualization based on the built-in tooling, showing how /usr/lib/vmware/vm-support/bin/smartinfo works (contrary to the article, this is a binary, not a smartinfo.sh script, at least in ESXi 6.0 and higher). Note this does not list all SMART parameters, so can give you a false sense of being on the safe side.
  2. [WayBack] Determine TBW from SSDs with S.M.A.R.T Values in ESXi (smartctl) | Virten.net which is based on smartctl from [WayBack] smartmontools and provides a link to the [WayBack] smartctl-6.6-4321.x86_64.vib.
    1. Download smartctl-6.6-4321.x86_64.vib
    2. Copy the VIB to the /tmp/ directory of an ESXi host
    3. SSH to the ESXi host
    4. Set the VIB acceptance level to CommunitySupported
      # esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
    5. Install the package (Maintenance Mode or Reboot is not required)
      #esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/smartctl-6.6-4321.x86_64.vib

    The tool is located at /opt/smartmontools/smartctl and works just like the Linux version.
    Locate physical disks with ls -l /dev/disks/

    /opt/smartmontools/smartctl -d [Device Type] –all /dev/disks/[DISK]

  3. [WayBack/Archive.is] ESXi S.M.A.R.T. health monitoring for hard drives (2040405) describing the internal tools from an ESXi 5.x perspective

The first two links are via [WayBack/Archive.is] esxi 6 monitor sata temperature – Google Search; the last links via [WayBack/Archive.is] esxi 6 view smart – Google Search.

–jeroen

2 Responses to “Some notes on ESXi and SMART information from HDD/SSD devices”

  1. Stefan's avatar

    Stefan said

    Hi all,

    with ESXi 7.0 it worked fine. But with ESXi 8.0 it doesn’t work. First I had to uninstall smartctl because of this error:

    [ProfileValidationError]
    In ImageProfile (Updated) ESXi-7.0U3-18644231-standard, the payload(s) in VIB smartctl-6.6-4321 does not have sha-256 gunzip checksum. This will prevent VIB security verification and secure boot from functioning properly. Please remove this VIB or please check with your vendor for a replacement of this VIB
    Please refer to the log file for more details.

    After updating to ESXi 8.0 I want to install smartctl again but this isn’t possible because of the same error. The installation parameters –no-sig-check and -f don’t work.

    Thank You

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