S.M.A.R.T. Data from USB-Attached HDD? (Proxmox 6.2)

Whitterquick

Active Member
Aug 1, 2020
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Hello all,

I can’t seem to find the answer to this so I will ask here. Does connecting drives via USB (in a multi-drive device) affect the ability to get S.M.A.R.T data from the drives? Does it depend on the device?

I want to know if I would be able to attach a non-RAID enclosure and still obtain S.M.A.R.T. data for the individual drives inside it if I passthrough to a VM (assuming I can get S.M.A.R.T. data from the individual drives if used on an OS installed locally without a hypervisor).

Hope that makes sense?
 
Does connecting drives via USB (in a multi-drive device) affect the ability to get S.M.A.R.T data from the drives?
short answer yes - most SATA to USB bridges do not pass through smart information.

still obtain S.M.A.R.T. data for the individual drives inside it if I passthrough to a VM
depending on how you want to passthrough the drives smart information also might get lost there.
e.g. 'scsi0: /dev/sdb' uses the virtualized scsi controller which has no knowledge of smart.

if you passthrough a disk-controller (via PCI passthrough) you could get smart values (if the controller supports it)

I hope this helps!
 
short answer yes - most SATA to USB bridges do not pass through smart information.


depending on how you want to passthrough the drives smart information also might get lost there.
e.g. 'scsi0: /dev/sdb' uses the virtualized scsi controller which has no knowledge of smart.

if you passthrough a disk-controller (via PCI passthrough) you could get smart values (if the controller supports it)

I hope this helps!

Can I pass through a multi-drive USB Enclosure as a PCI device? How is this done?