Checking storage status, Physical Disk status & Virtual Disk status using OMSA on an ESXI server

Due to the nature of hardware, it is good practice to regularly check the status of your server’s hardware, and specifically to check the status of the storage within the server for any errors. Dell EMC’s OpenManage Server Administrator (OMSA) application allows you to check the current status of each RAID array (or Virtual Disk) configured on your server and the status of each physical drive.

To check the status of the storage devices within the server, first use the OMSA portal on your home/work computer to access your server’s OMSA services. Once you are logged in to the OMSA GUI, click on storage, in the lift hand side panel.

Depending on the configuration of your server, you will now be presented with a list of RAID controllers and Virtual Disks configured on the server (if present), or a list of Physical Disks.

If there are any errors with any of the storage components or configuration, you should see either a non-critical or critical warning symbol, next to one of the items. You should also be able to see the status of the Virtual Disks (if present) on this server.

At this point, it is good to know what the configuration of your server should be, especially related to RAID arrays and drive configuration. For the server in my example, the server was meant to have 4x RAID 0s configured, which means there should be 4x Virtual Disks. However, as you can see in my example, one of the Virtual Disks is missing.

If a Virtual Disk is missing, it would normally indicate that one or more of the physical drives within this array has completely failed, which has caused the RAID array to go offline. To investigate further, you would need to check the Physical Disks.

If there is an error with a Virtual Disk, if a Virtual Disk is missing, or even if nothing appears to be wrong, at this point you should check the status of all the Physical Disks within the chassis. You should now click on the RAID controller name to check the individual components within the RAID controller.

You should now see a list of components attached to the RAID controller. This list can differ depending on the RAID controller that is installed in your server. In my example, the RAID controller has a Battery, two connecters, Firmware/Driver Version and Virtual Disks attached/configured on the RAID controller.

You can see the status of each component to the right of it; which you can use to identify if there are currently any errors. However, if a Virtual/Physical Disk is completely offline, the status may still show as OK for the Virtual Disks and Connectors, so it is still worth clicking into these components even if they show as having no error. Click onto Connector 0 to begin with.

Depending on the configuration of you server, you may need to click on further components (e.g. Enclosure), until you reach the list of Physical Disks.

Here you will now be able to see a list of Physical Disks attached to this connecter on the RAID controller. Please note, depending on the setup of your server, not all of the physical drives may be connected to connecter 0; so you should keep this in mind while following the below steps and also check any other connecters.

Using the list of all the physical drives, you will be able to see if any of the drives have an error and the state of each Physical Disk.

At this point, it is good to know what the configuration of your server should be, especially related to RAID arrays and disk configuration. As an example, the server below is meant to have 4x Physical Disks attached to the RAID controller (all through connector 0), however, only 3 are listed. This is normally caused by a drive completely failing; causing it to disappear from the monitoring. The monitoring may not show this, but by comparing your knowledge of the server’s configuration to what components are currently listed, you can see a drive is missing.

You can use this screen to see the current state of each drive attached to the RAID controller through this connector. In my example, one of the disks has a foreign configuration, which would normally suggest an error has occurred with the drive.

If you are presented with a component with an error, click on the symbol to bring up more details about this component.

Here you can see the details about the physical drive, its state and its current status.

You can now use this information to inform your decision on what to do next. If you wish to have a drive replaced, please see the section on our FAQ on how to go about getting a technician to perform this action, using the information found on OMSA. If you do wish for a drive to be replaced, you will need to provide the details found on the physical drive’s information page, as shown in the example above. This will aid our technician in identifying the faulty drive during the drive swap process.

You should now repeat this process for any other connectors and then any other RAID controllers configured within your server. How many connectors are present depend on the model of the RAID controller. How many connectors are in use depends on how your server was built and configured. Most of our dedicated servers only use one connector, meaning that other connectors may have no Virtual Disks or Physical Disks behind them, but please check to make sure.

Once you have checked all the connectors, you can now also check the Virtual Disks for more details about their configuration and status, by clicking on the Virtual Disks button. The status of the Virtual Drives were shown in a previous screen, but by using the below steps, you can check the Virtual Disks in more detail.

Here you will be able to see a list of all the Virtual Disks (or RAID Arrays) configured on this RAID controller and their current status. You will also be able to see the details of each Virtual Disk; including the layout (i.e. the RAID configuration/level).

At this point, it is good to know what the configuration of your server should be, especially related to RAID arrays and drive configuration. For the server in my example below, the server is meant to have 4x RAID 0s configured, which means there should be 4x Virtual Disks. However, as you can see in my example, one of the Virtual Disks is missing. The most likely cause for this is either an error with a Physical disk or a missing drive; which you should have been able to identify on the page which listed all the physical disks attached to the connectors.

If an error does appears against one of the Virtual Disks, you can click the name to find out all the Physical Disks configured within this Virtual Disk, and check for any drives with errors or identify any missing drives.

After checking the status of each component attached to each RAID controller, checking through each connector of the RAID controller, all the Physical Disks and all the Virtual Disks, you should have a clear picture of the status of your server’s storage, and if there are any errors or missing disks. If you have encountered any issue with any of the hardware, please feel free to get in touch and we will be happy to help. If you need further advice on how to proceed, please feel free to get in touch or check through our FAQ section on our MyServers Control Panel.

If you have any further questions about OMSA, please look through our FAQ section. If our FAQ page does not have the answer, please feel free to raise a support ticket, and we will be happy to help.