Technical Tip: FortiGate hard drive and SMART status

The FortiGate device may occasionally display a 'log disk error' in the alert console. This message typically indicates that FortiOS has detected a potential issue with the SMART disk on the FortiGate unit.

Check Disk Health:
FortiGate devices have built-in tools to check the health of the storage devices. The Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) attributes for hard drives are used to monitor the reliability of drives and predict potential failures.

1. To verify whether the FortiGate device has an available disk, run the following command on the CLI of the FortiGate:

get system status

Example output:

FortiGate # get system status

Version: FortiGate-3700D v7.0.13,build0566,231024 (GA.M)

Log hard disk: Available

The output is modified for clarity.

Or:  

get hardware status

Example output:

Model name: FortiGate-xxx            
---  
Hard disk: 122104 MB /dev/sda       
USB Flash: not available            
Network Card chipset: FortiASIC NP6LITE Adapter (rev.) 

2. To display detailed information about the storage devices and partitions on a FortiGate unit, use:
   
   

get system storage

== [ HDD1 ]

name: HDD1  

== [ HDD2 ]

name: HDD2 

3. To display information about the storage devices connected to a FortiGate unit, use:

execute disk list

diagnose hardware deviceinfo disk

diagnose sys logdisk status

get hardware status

4. To display disk usage information for the system's file system, helping administrators understand how disk space is being utilized, use:
   
   

fnsysctl df -k

5. Finally, The following commands display the SMART stats to help determine if a drive is going to fail:

diagnose sys logdisk smart - (SMART attribute values are displayed in hexadecimal format)

diagnose hardware smartctl -a /dev/sdb

When the RAW value for one of these five attributes is greater than zero, further investigation is required:

Related article:

Troubleshooting Tip: Log disk failure Imminent, prioritize data backup and disk replacement