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We have a RAID 5 array using Intel Matrix Storage (i.e. a motherboard based RAID). One of the hard drives has started to make a grinding noise, and the array is currently rebuilding.

We'd like to interrogate the S.M.A.R.T. values on the Seagate drives, but for some reason none of the programs we've tried have been able to read the S.M.A.R.T. values.

Is there any technique for reading the S.M.A.R.T. values out so we can tell which drive is on its last legs?

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What programs did you try? – digitxp Sep 2 '11 at 15:06
HDDlife and AShampoo HDD Control. I think the problem is that all of the drives appear as one large drive thats 6GB in size (its RAID 5). Its almost like we need something to bypass the RAID controller and peer directly into the hard drive controller itself to work out which hard drive is on its last legs. – Gravitas Sep 2 '11 at 15:10

4 Answers

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If the Intel Matrix Storage Manager doesn't tell you about the drive's (SMART) status, then perhaps (or, as well) just use Seagate's (bootable) Seatools utility to diagnose the Seagate drives.

You simply have to set the BIOS from 'RAID' to 'IDE', and the drives should be visible as individual drives to the bootable Seatools media.

Once you've used it to diagnose the drive, turn the RAID back on in the BIOS and you should be back the way you were (RAID configuration will remain). At that point you can plan to swap the faulty drive (if needed).

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Thanks, good to know that this is possible. I'd be a bit hesitant to try this out - those RAID arrays are so fragile that if you switch the computer on with one of the drives unplugged, wait 30 seconds, then plug that drive in again, then switch it on again, it wants to do a full rebuild, which takes 10 hours. This should be totally unnecessary, as the drive was never written to. – Gravitas Sep 9 '11 at 16:10
up vote 6 down vote

In my brief reading, it looks like this may be a common issue with that controller. Try giving smartmontools a shot. It's supposed to have some experimental support for the Matrix controller.

2011-02-04: We added experimental support for disks behind Intel Matrix RAID driver on Windows. Please report your test results to the smartmontools support mailinglist.

Use /dev/csmi0,X as a device name to access SMART info of individual disks, e.g. like this:

smartctl.exe -a /dev/csmi0,0

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Tried experimental support, it didn't seem to work at all. Thanks for the tip, anyway. – Gravitas Oct 29 '11 at 16:30
Worked for me, Intel Matrix Storage Console 8.9.2.1002, ICH10 chipset, smartmontools 5.43-0-20120-0620-r3567 – ChrisWue Jun 27 '12 at 21:20
up vote 3 down vote

Argus Monitor shows SMART info for drives behind Intel Matrix RAID controller:

Version 1.8.17 (01/06/2011): Support for Intel Matrix RAID controllers (ICHx chipsets).

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up vote 1 down vote

hddguardian works great with Intel Matrix RAID controller, essentially it's a GUI for smartctl.

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