When servicing servers I often find lots of various disks connected to several HD-controllers.
To find and replace a specific disk in a server filled with disks often becomes rather tedious.
So the question is:
Is there some tool that tells me which disk is connected to which controller (possibly even the controller port)? (each device with its proper name, like in the details Properties).
I checked SIW (System Info for Windows) and also Piriform Speccy.
SIW reveils lots of system infomration but I was not able to pin-point how each drive is connected.
For instance SCSI devices are referenced by Bus Number, TargetID and LUN. Well that's fine but often different drives have the same Bus Number, TargetID and LUN.
I'd think there is some software able to not only retrieve specific information about disks and controllers but also tell which disk is connected to which controller (port).
The machine does know that, for sure – how to make it visible to us ?
Thanks for replies.
System Hardware:
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer Inc., P8P67 Deluxe (Chipset: P67)
HD-Controllers On MoBo:
- Marvell 9128 SATA 6G Controller (2 ports)
- JMicron JMB362 Controller (4 ports)
- Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller (2 ports)
- Promise Fastrak TX4660 (4 ports – empty, not in use)
HD-Controllers in PCIe slots:
- Marvell 9123 SATA 6G Controller (2 ports)
- Marvell 9123 SATA 6G Controller (2 ports)
Disks installed and connected to controllers:
- WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 (3x)
- WDC WD2001FASS-00W2B0 (4x)
- WDC WD2002FAEX-007BA0 (2x)
- WDC WD4000YR-01PLB0 (1x)
- [ATAPI iHES108 2 SCSI CdRom Device (1x)]
Best Answer
There is another option within Windows - of course. Device Manager reveals it all, not in a really comfortable way, but it sure does.
Say you want to know which disk is connected to which controller.
Select one of the disks in Device Manager right click to open the properties window and select the tab 'Details'. From here the information needed can be retrieved. Since a disk is connected to a controller, that disk has a parent and that parent is your controller. In case the controller hosts several disks the other disk are its Siblings. To know which controller port a disk is connected to read the property 'Device Instance Path'.
An alternative is to start at the controller properties and retrieve the information for the controllers 'Children'. There may be one or more 'Children' listed, depending on the devices actually connected. Each 'Child' represents a disk. In this case the value for a controller 'child' is equal to the 'Device Instance Path' of a disk.
To retrieve the coded names of manufacturers and devices use the site: http://www.pcidatabase.com/
I don't know about a USB Vendor and Device List other than: http://listing.driveragent.com/usb/
With this technique I was able to draw a map of disks & controllers from a server with 16 disks and 4 controllers. Best of all the map matched the actual internals and we were able to pinpoint and extract exactly that one disk with minimal downtime.
Hope this may help someone.