aaccli: what kind of disk is it ?

[Tom Samplonius]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Josh Brooks wrote:

> I have studied the help/usage for aaccli for quite a while, and I cannot
> figure out how to do two things:
> 
> a) how can I determine the actual, real size of the disk ?  For instance,
> I have some 36gig drives that are 36.8 gigs unformatted size, and some
> that are 36.4, and so on - if I want to buy a replacement drive to, say,
> rebuild a mirror, I have to get one that is the same size or larger - so
> how, in aaccli, can I see the actual unformatted size of that disk ?

  Most RAID devices do rounding:  4, 9, 18, 36, 72, etc.  So if the device
is a fraction bigger, it just rounds its capacity down to the standard
size.  Besides, if you are doing RAID1 or RAID5, the controller can only
use as much capacity as the smallest disk in the set.  So, if you mirror
a 9GB and 18GB, you will only get a 9GB set.  

> b) the type of disk it is ... this would be good enough that I wouldn't
> need (a), since I could just look it up on the `net.  Is there a way to
> see the manufacturer ID string from aaccli - the string that I am shown in
> the BIOS and when the system boots ?
> 
> thanks!!


Tom