Query RAID Information,...

NTDEV
1

Hi,

maybe this sounds a little “newbie” but does Windows (no matter version) store RAID information somewhere i can query. RAID (Hardware and Software, except Windows Build-In) is Vendor specific, thats clear, and all have their own (Software) Interfaces to query/modify/setup their Hardware, but does Windows have some place where this information possibly will be stored. I ask this because i read a (german) newsgroup question someone asking if this could be done via C#,…obviously not with C# and .NET itself, but maybe there is some central place/space that will hold any generic information or there are defined interaces to store such information somewhere if a RAID Controller/Environment is available on the System. AFAIK Diskpart and other Tool out of that familly can query stuff like that,…but i am not sure at this moment. I am just curious,…

Regards

K.

2

VDS 1.1, that is from Windows Server 2003 SP1 onwards supports a
common RAID management API. Most RAID vendors ship a VDS hardware
provider to support this. Though you may have to contact their
support or look on their download sites.

The DiskRAID tool is a command shell wrapper to registered VDS
hardware providers in the same way that DiskPart controls local disks
and volumes through VDS.

Check the MSDN documentation on VDS, specifically the management
functions supplied by the hardware provider class.

Whilst VDS provides some level of common management for RAID, if you
want finer grained management, then you’ll have to resort to vendor
specific tools.

Mark.

At 16:25 12/02/2010, xxxxx@arcor.de wrote:

Hi,

maybe this sounds a little “newbie” but does Windows (no matter
version) store RAID information somewhere i can query. RAID
(Hardware and Software, except Windows Build-In) is Vendor specific,
thats clear, and all have their own (Software) Interfaces to
query/modify/setup their Hardware, but does Windows have some place
where this information possibly will be stored. I ask this because i
read a (german) newsgroup question someone asking if this could be
done via C#,…obviously not with C# and .NET itself, but maybe
there is some central place/space that will hold any generic
information or there are defined interaces to store such information
somewhere if a RAID Controller/Environment is available on the
System. AFAIK Diskpart and other Tool out of that familly can query
stuff like that,…but i am not sure at this moment. I am just curious,…

Regards

K.

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3

Why should Windows?

The HBA presents all of the drives in that RAID as a single disk, giving the
OS no inkling as to the granularity that composes that disk. To drag out the
specifics of the RAID you’ll most likely need to use the IOCTL_SCSI_MINIPORT
command and acquire the vendor specific information needed to send commands
to the HBA. Using that interface you can elicit full control over the HBA,
removing or adding disks, changing the type of RAID or even killing the RAID
altogether. But … what goes into the SRB_IOCONTROL you have to get from
the vendor.

Gary G. Little
H (952) 223-1349
C (952) 454-4629
xxxxx@comcast.net

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of
xxxxx@arcor.de
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 10:26 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Query RAID Information,…

Hi,

maybe this sounds a little “newbie” but does Windows (no matter version)
store RAID information somewhere i can query. RAID (Hardware and Software,
except Windows Build-In) is Vendor specific, thats clear, and all have their
own (Software) Interfaces to query/modify/setup their Hardware, but does
Windows have some place where this information possibly will be stored. I
ask this because i read a (german) newsgroup question someone asking if this
could be done via C#,…obviously not with C# and .NET itself, but maybe
there is some central place/space that will hold any generic information or
there are defined interaces to store such information somewhere if a RAID
Controller/Environment is available on the System. AFAIK Diskpart and other
Tool out of that familly can query stuff like that,…but i am not sure at
this moment. I am just curious,…

Regards

K.

NTDEV is sponsored by OSR

For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars

To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at
http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer

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4

Nice, thank you! Nah, its COM,…uh! :frowning:

5

>somewhere i can query. RAID (Hardware and Software, except Windows Build-In) is Vendor specific,

thats clear, and all have their own (Software) Interfaces to query/modify/setup their Hardware, but
does Windows have some place where this information possibly will be stored.

VDS (Virtual Disk Service) is for you.

–
Maxim S. Shatskih
Windows DDK MVP
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

6

Nice thank you Maxim,…