No S.M.A.R.T. information for RaidON GR3630-2S-SB2

[linuxlad]

I'm using two RaidON GR3630-2S-SB2 in a Raid1 configuration with a SiL 3124 Raid Controller in MS Windows with HDS-5.50.

It shows all the drives from both enclosures; however, it does not show any S.M.A.R.T. information for any of the drives in either enclosure (enclosure-1 has two 2TB-Hitachi and enclosure-2 has two 2TB-Samsung).

I also have two Sans digital enclosures connected to the same controller and both have a Raid1 configuration with two HDD's each using the same model hard drives as the RaidON and HDS shows the S.M.A.R.T. information for these.

According to the compatible list, the full support that includes the S.M.A.R.T. information for these GR3630-2S-SB2 enclosures has been available since version 4.71.

https://www.hdsentinel.com/compatibilit ... _disks.php

[hdsentinel]

I'm afraid by the combination of these devices (the RAID device plus the Silicon Image controller) the status information will be missing in all versions. This is not a bug/limitation of Hard Disk Sentinel but a limitation of the SiL controller itself.

Generally both the Silicon Image controller and the GR3630-2S-SB2+Raid1 device requires very special methods in order to see "through" and access the disk drives and their S.M.A.R.T. information.

Hard Disk Sentinel support both of them for long time - but when we need to see "through" the SiL controller, we can't use further special commands required for the GR3630-2S-SB2+Raid1 device. This is why the health/status information is missing in this combination and could be displayed only if the Raid1 device would be connected to a different "simpler" controller which would allow Hard Disk Sentinel to send the special commands required specifically for thee GR3630-2S-SB2+Raid1 device.

Anyway, if you prefer, I suggest to please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option in the latest possible version as it may help to check the actual "raw" response Hard Disk Sentinel got during detection and this may give some ideas, thoughts if there may be anything further can be done specifically for this combination.

[linuxlad]

Thank you for the reply and the information.

Basically; the problem for HDS is the "combination" between this particular controller (Sil3124) and this enclosure (GR3630-2S-SB2).

I have several other controller models in storage which I can test with in the future for compatibility with this "Raid-ON" enclosure using HDS; however, I currently do not have time for this so I decided to take the RaidON-enclosure "offline", and instead, replace it with the "Sans Digital" enclosure since it displays "all" the "S.M.A.R.T" information as I do not like been "blind" to this critical data.

By the way; you mentioned: "simpler" controller....what do you mean by this?

[hdsentinel]

When I mean "simpler" controller, I mean a different SATA controller, for example if you use an SATA->eSATA backplane with a normal SATA controller on the motherboard, for example with any Intel chipset, similar to this one:

[linuxlad]

Ok, thanks, I have several of those internal-sata-to-esata and I have used them in the past.

I will use this in the future for this enclosure since it does not require a different or extra controller-card and it would be faster than "USB-2.0"

[linuxlad]

The results were the same for both versions of 5.50 and 5.70.

I tested using three different connections: external E-Sata-Port from system main board, internal-main-board-sata-to-external Sata connection, and USB-2.0, however, HDS was unable to display any S.M.A.R.T. information from any of the three connections.

I also tested with nine other tools/applications from different vendors and none of them were able to provide any S.M.A.R.T. information from any of the three connections. Apparently; no other vendor has been able to provide S.M.A.R.T. support for this particular enclosure.

I submitted a test report to the developer from HDS-5.70 and added a link to this thread in the comments section of the test report.

I'm very surprised that no vendor has ever been able to provide S.M.A.R.T. support for this particular enclosure since it is twelve years old from 2009 and RAIDON is a well-known manufacturer.

[hdsentinel]

Thanks for the image and the Hard Disk Sentinel report, yes, now I see.

Yes, I'm afraid that generally the RaidON GR3630-2S-SB2 device does not allow accessing the real S.M.A.R.T. information, the complete details of the disks.

As you can see, Hard Disk Sentinel (only this software) can properly identify the RAID member disk drives and detect, report all possible status and details accessible with this device.
On the upper left area, you can see both RAID member disks and if you select them, the Overview page describes the situation:

The hard disk controller provides only a generic self-monitoring (S.M.A.R.T.) status, without additional details.
The S.M.A.R.T. status is: Good
Disk status: Present, initialized
RAID status: OK, Fan speed: 2664 RPM
It is recommended to continuously monitor the hard disk status.

The problem is that this RaidON device does not allow to see more details. At least, we can see that the
- disk drives are working correctly (present)
- disk drives did not reach the error-level threshold (S.M.A.R.T. status is Good)
- RAID status is OK (not degraded)
- the fan in the device is working and its current RPM displayed

This is why the Health is 75% to indicate that it is good - but we can't know if its perfect or not. Of course if there would be an error reported, then the Health % would be much lower.

Hard Disk Sentinel can detect and display as much status/information as possible with this device too - which is a bit limited.