How and with what to monitor the status of disks in ESXi?

Question

Hard disks

A few questions about the state of disks under the ESXi 6.5 hypervisor
. I keep a file washer on the server, and virtual machines on a separate disk. There are a lot of things, so for now the raid will not work.

1. How to monitor HDD status in ESXi? View SMART, operating time, make an Alert, etc.? You can't do the same with the help of a virtual OS...

2. How to understand the reason for the lack of access to the hypervisor via the local network? It just might disappear. Access did not appear even after switching off and on the server. Only after a complete blackout. What logs to watch?

3. And the last.
How and how to recover information from VMDK disks if the latter has died?

Answer 1

If you have a real server, and not self-assembly from desktop hardware, and also have a supported version of ESXi installed from the correct distribution, then you can monitor the overall status (OK or not-OK) from the hypervisor interface. Detailed information can be obtained from the terminal using the appropriate utilities for working with RAID controllers: for HP, for example, this is hpssacli (ssacli).

Answer 2

If you have a full Intel server, you can try R.tester . He is "specially trained" to get to the disks, bypassing various obstacles, and this skill is constantly honed.
The program is free and does not require installation.

How and how to recover information from VMDK disks if the latter has died?

I highly recommend not to do this. Depending on your configuration, such a task can easily become much more difficult than a "normal" restore.
Complicating the situation are additional layers of architecture, like delta files. If you lose metadata, then you can almost certainly forget about recovery altogether - there will be a mess of pieces of your files that can only be collected manually.
It's certainly possible to try to build something after that, but manually building a single file(s) will cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars, depending on the format and size.
Backups are much cheaper.

Answer 3

How to Monitor HDD Status in ESXi

Something can be pulled out of snmp. Something from the tools that the controller manufacturer writes for ESXi. If you have a "server-from-desktop" (it's quite a good idea for a home, no idea for a business), then most likely, apart from what you can get via snmp, nothing.

How to understand the reason for the lack of access to the hypervisor over the local network?

View logs. I have never encountered this either when working with normal servers, or even when working with "server-from-desktop"

How and how to recover information from VMDK disks if the latter has died?

What does "died" mean in this context?