Needing to get HDD temp readings from drive in an Intel Matrix Storage Manager array

So, the docs say something along the lines of... "Third party applications
are not able to monitor the S.M.A.R.T settings (such as drive temperature),
but the storage manager software will notify you if a problem comes up".
So..... what if I want to just look at some smart values.... say, the
temperature? Because I run some systems in remote locations using IMST in
RAID1... and they don't have air-conditioning on at night, so I am wanting
to monitor the drives temperature, in case I need to rectify the cooling
situation at all.
Does anyone know of a tool to get these values? Or some way to get them from
the Storage Manager or something?

This is an example of Intel's view on the subject.

http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../cs-015002.htm

"Can't view S.M.A.R.T. values of hard drive after setting up RAID

Intel Matrix Storage Manager supports S.M.A.R.T.; however, once a
RAID volume is created using the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, the
S.M.A.R.T. values of the hard drives can no longer be viewed by third
party software utilities that read these values.

This is a known issue. While S.M.A.R.T. values cannot be viewed by
third party software utilities, they are still reported as S.M.A.R.T.
alerts by the Intel Matrix Storage Manager tray alert and the
Intel Matrix Storage Console."

Possible workarounds.

1) Figure out how to use "tray alert" ? I can't find a decent manual with details.
Manual70.pdf from Intel doesn't say.

2) Use a utility that can monitor the "motherboard temperature" readout
provided by the Super I/O hardware monitor interface ? The motherboard
temperature may reflect changes in room temp. This isn't always going
to work in an absolute sense, since some motherboards have picked a
"hot spot" for the location of the sensor. Take readings from all
your computers, when air conditioning is known to be functional, and
then note any temps which shoot past these norms. Even if the sensor
reads "60C", if the room gets 10C hotter, the sensor should read "70C",
and you know there is a delta of 10C present in the room. Even if the
motherboard is not actually at 70C. The sensor may only be good enough
for relative measurement. (The motherboard sensor on mine works properly,
and is likely a separate thermistor. I also have a room temperature
sensor connected to a spare header provided by the motherboard. Not
many motherboards provide that.)

3) Install a separate disk, not part of any array. Then a SMART utility
can read that disk.

There is a FAQ here, where I first read about the "passthru" issue for
pseudo-SCSI interfaces and using SMART.

"Can I monitor disks behind RAID controllers?"
http://web.archive.org/web/200801100...urceforge.net/

"RAID controllers typically simulate a (logical) disk for each array of
(physical) disks to the OS. Access to SMART functionality relies on ATA
or SCSI pass through I/O controls providing direct access to each physical
disk. But the standard I/O controls available are usually not designed to
make this distinction between logical and physical disks. Therefore,
smartmontools has to use vendor specific I/O controls. Support for disks
behind RAID controllers is highly dependent on both platform and controller type."

You'd need to worry if the temperature goes up to 60 degrees
Celsius! Below that, and good fans will keep it cool enough.
You think that in your environment these temperature is
being reached?

I don't use Windows, but I rigged up a liquid-cooling system
just recently and looked into liquid HDD cooling too and
found that with a couple of fans connected in series, I
could keep them cool. But there are some interesting
solutions for this. (my bookmarks aren't in English
though...)

Going above 60 degrees may be possible in this scenario...
As for liquid cooling or additional fans, I have bad news :(
- I'd have to go to each of the remote locations to do this, as we don't
have someone with enough knowledge in these locations to do this...
- I'm in an enterprise enviromment with Dell machines with 3 year on site
warranties... I don't wanna break the warranties :D
- The machines that I'm dealing with don't have enough room for that
stuff... :(

However, for my home machines, I'm using both your suggestions :D

I can't believe how much this sucks.
Workaround 1 is what i'd really love, I also discovered the lack of
documentation. Also, a list of all the EventID numbers (with
descriptions)that it puts in the Windows application log would be nice
(since there isn't a red or yellow event that occours if you just pull out a
drive..), so that I know what event codes our event monitoring software
should send an email to me on. I was never able to get an answer from Intel
on this one. They just said they didn't have a list on that, with the excuse
that the info the Manager can report is supposed to be more detailed (though
I didn't try calling back several times to get different peoples answers)...
clearly I need the phone extension of the developers of the
application/driver for that. :( :( :(

Unfortunatley, the other options are not going to work:
- I need to know the temp of the actual drives.
- I'm not sure my boss would go for installing another drive (of the same
model, since I've seen over 10 degrees of difference in drive temperatures
of different models sitting right next to each other) in each of these
machines, so that we know the temp of the drives :) It would also mean
getting access to all the machines in the off hours... which don't have an
IT person at the locations.

Thanks for all the suggestions I hadn't thought of...
I guess I'll call Intel a few more times to try and root out as much info as
I can... then DEFINATELY report back here with whatever I find out.

Why are you asking here? This has nothing to do with XP.

You could give Speedfan a try. I find the web site hard to get substantive
information from, so the fastest way to find out whether it can see
SMART info on Intel RAID, is to try it out. Alfredo keeps working on
it. It has reported drive temperature on my machine here, but I
don't use RAID - so at least I know it can report a drive temperature
in the simplest of cases.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Speedfan is listed here as supporting "Areca and Software RAID".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Mo...ing_Technology

[Fritsen]

Hi

I can see it have been some time since the last post in this threat, so i don't know if this has any relevance to you at this point, but i thought I would post it anyway. I found this threat through Google, when I was looking for a solution for the same problem, so maybe this post can help others as well.

After trying a lot of different tools, including Speedfan, Intel Matrix Storage Manger, Intel Rapid Storage Manger, Everest Ultimate etc., I was surprised to find, that the tool doing the trick was the small AIDA64 application. I've attached a scrrenshot for verification.


AIDA64 unfortunately isn’t free, and the free AIDA32 did not work for me. However, if you have a serious need for monitoring your HDDs, the 40 dollars for a license shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

You can get the latest version of AIDA64 here:

[ApPy10]

Apart from what "Fristen" has said, the only means to monitor HD temps, or any other temps that are not already designed into your motherboard for monitoring is to obtain a "trick" case with those facilities. The only cases I'm aware of are the high-end Antec: P-160, P-180. With these cases you have available several temp probes that you can place anywhere you want and continuously monitor whatever you need.