Suppose we want to establish the speed of a SCSI hard disk mounted on a server that can only be accessed remotely. There are more ways to get this kind of information. The simplest model is to derive and / or serial number of the disk. These two pieces of information in fact almost always contain clear indications about the type of device and its main characteristics. It is only to know the exact syntax of the serial, which varies depending on the manufacturer. Take for example a Seagate model # ST373355SS labeled. By breaking the code as follows we get a series of valuable information:

  1. ST = identidicatore brand
  2. 3 = hard drive format (3 = 3.5 ")
  3. 73 = disk capacity (in GB)
  4. Field 3 = reserved for future use
  5. RPM = 5 (5 = 15k, 10K = 0)
  6. 5 = number of model generation
  7. SS = interface (SCSI = SS)

To locate the model and / or serial disk from command line we can just do a `` cat / proc / scsi / scsi:

# cat /proc/scsi/scsi

Or use the sg3-utils to directly question the SCSI device:

# sginfo -g /dev/sda

If the sg3-utils are not installed:

# apt-get install sg3-utils

Although most elegant, this second approach is far more cumbersome than necessary, after obtaining the serial using the `cat` indicated above, if we are not able to decode it simply visit the website of the manufacturer and obtain the information we need directly from the data sheet.