Monitor HBA speed/usage

[EMcCloud]

How do you monitor HBA speeds/usage?

We had some SAN issues the other week, and I was a bit frustrated that I couldn't monitor the speed ESX was seeing with the disk. I would just noticed VMs started to power down. Any way I can see the connection deteriorating?

[mwheeler1982 · Accepted solution]

Log into the ESX console, run esxtop[/b], then press d[/b] to get to the disk usage section.

For more information, read the esxtop manpage by typing man esxtop[/b] at the console prompt.

(points please )

[mitchellnj_w]

We run a Brocade based SAN. I use SANHealth at least once a month to produce a report on the SAN. It does not give "real time" stats but it does capture performance over time which is presented in graph format. It typically takes less than 10 min for Brocade's automated system to generate the report.

Not sure if that helps.

Depending on the size of your environment or depth of your wallet, there are protocol analyzers for Fibre Channel such as XGig to show you true stats. Not really an ESX function.

[boydd]

It's also a good idea to review the logs every once in a while. They will show dropped paths or flip-flopping.

DB

[EMcCloud]

Good suggestions, but esxtop doesn't quite do what I want. It shows my current throughput as I use it, but it doesn't tell me if the line is degraded. I've watched it in the past but even healthy it never reports more than a few k at a time. Nothing alerts me to the fact the line isn't healthy.

Does SAN Health require admin access to any of the SAN infrastructure?