How do identify which storage used as system one?

[Alexey_78]

Hello everyone

I have one chalange here.

Old admin left company and we have vSpeher 6.0 in place installed on Dell R815

There is drives 4 drives in raid and 2 drives as separate one.

So in UI I see 4 storages.

Management want to replace those separate drives with bigger one. Storage related to those are empty.

But I have no idea which drives actually used by vSphere as system one. Do not know where it was installed. To Raid or to one of single drives.

How I can identify that to be sure.

Thank you

[bspagna89]

Hi,

If you turn on SSH and SSH to your host (under security profile -> Services -> SSH). We can run a few commands and determine where ESXi is installed.

Once, you're logged in via SSH, please run the following commands (under each command will be example outputs):

ls -la /bootbank

[root@HOSTNAME:~] ls -la /bootbank

lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            49 Mar  7 17:24 /bootbank -> /vmfs/volumes/e34352e4-5398c26f-d624-fe3f847e8e97

We are looking for that VMFS UUID.

Now run this command against that UUID:

vmkfstools -P /vmfs/volumes/e34352e4-5398c26f-d624-fe3f847e8e97

[root@HOSTNAME:~] vmkfstools -P /vmfs/volumes/e34352e4-5398c26f-d624-fe3f847e8e97

vfat-0.04 file system spanning 1 partitions.

File system label (if any):

Mode: private

Capacity 261853184 (63929 file blocks * 4096), 41488384 (10129 blocks) avail, max supported file size 0

UUID: e34352e4-5398c26f-d624-fe3f847e8e97

Partitions spanned (on "disks"):

       mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:5  

Is Native Snapshot Capable: NO

In the text stating Partitions spanned on Disks, we will use that to determine what the disk is :

esxcli storage core device list | grep  -A27 mpx.vmhba32

[root@HOSTNAME:~] esxcli storage core device list | grep -A27  mpx.vmhba32

mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

   Display Name: Local USB Direct-Access (mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0)

   Has Settable Display Name: false

   Size: 15280

   Device Type: Direct-Access

   Multipath Plugin: NMP

   Devfs Path: /vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0

  Vendor: DELL

   Model: IDSDM

   Revision: 0001

   SCSI Level: 2

   Is Pseudo: false

   Status: on

   Is RDM Capable: false

   Is Local: true

  Is Removable: true

   Is SSD: false

   Is VVOL PE: false

   Is Offline: false

   Is Perennially Reserved: false

   Queue Full Sample Size: 0

   Queue Full Threshold: 0

   Thin Provisioning Status: unknown

   Attached Filters:

   VAAI Status: unsupported

   Other UIDs: vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30

   Is Shared Clusterwide: false

   Is Local SAS Device: false

   Is SAS: false

  Is USB: true

   Is Boot USB Device: true

   Is Boot Device: true

   Device Max Queue Depth: 1

   No of outstanding IOs with competing worlds: 32

As you can see above, I am using Dell SD cards based off the fact of the model.. Which is is Internal Dual SD Module. You results will vary but if you paste them here, we can help you determine what you are using.

[isheriff]

Hi Alexey_78,

You can do the following:

       1. ls -l / which will give you the locations for all the folders/ partitionsa under '/' For example:

          [root@abc:~] ls -l /

          lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            49 Apr 17 17:26 altbootbank -> /vmfs/volumes/8b94eb7b-858cba05-4291-72744065a10c

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 bin

         lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            49 Apr 17 17:26 bootbank -> /vmfs/volumes/99862f77-9a02c583-4654-06ed4de812dc

          -r--r--r--    1 root     root        528543 Feb 11 22:31 bootpart.gz

          -r--r--r--    1 root     root        414338 Feb 11 22:31 bootpart4kn.gz

          drwxr-xr-x   16 root     root           512 Apr 18 13:19 dev

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:26 etc

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 lib

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 lib64

          -r-x------    1 root     root         13605 Mar  8 20:01 local.tgz

          lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             6 Apr 17 17:26 locker -> /store

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 mbr

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 opt

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        131072 Apr 18 13:19 proc

          lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            29 Apr 17 17:26 productLocker -> /locker/packages/vmtoolsRepo/

          lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root             4 Feb 11 22:13 sbin -> /bin

          lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            49 Apr 17 17:26 scratch -> /vmfs/volumes/5aa18196-f7bf38be-a523-000c29779c04

          lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            49 Apr 17 17:26 store -> /vmfs/volumes/5aa1818d-fc90ed9e-fcb6-000c29779c04

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 tardisks

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 tardisks.noauto

          drwxrwxrwt    1 root     root           512 Apr 18 13:15 tmp

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 usr

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:26 var

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 vmfs

          drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root           512 Apr 17 17:25 vmimages

          lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            18 Feb 11 22:13 vmupgrade -> /locker/vmupgrade/

     2. From the output of the previous command you'll get the location of the bootbank (in bold).

     3. You can then use vmkfstools -Ph <path to bootbank> and it will give you the disk on which ESXi is installed. For example:

          [root@abc:~] vmkfstools -Ph /vmfs/volumes/99862f77-9a02c583-4654-06ed4de812dc

          vfat-0.04 (Raw Major Version: 0) file system spanning 1 partitions.

          File system label (if any):

          Mode: private

          Capacity 249.7 MB, 108.3 MB available, file block size 4 KB, max supported file size 0 bytes

          Disk Block Size: 512/0/0

          UUID: 99862f77-9a02c583-4654-06ed4de812dc

          Partitions spanned (on "disks"):

                  mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0:6

          Is Native Snapshot Capable: NO

You'd get a similar output where the disk id would be in the place of the highlighted disk id in the output above.

You can then replace the other disks.

If you find my answer helpful, please mark it as correct/ helpful.

Regards,

Iram