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I need to know what hard disks are available, including ones that aren't mounted and possibly aren't formatted. I can't find them in dmesg or /var/log/messages (too much to scroll through). I'm hoping there's a way to use /dev or /proc to find out this information, but I don't know how. I am using Linux.

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  • The original question didn't specify any particular unix variant, and hardware management is obviously highly variant-dependent. Commented Dec 6, 2010 at 18:51
  • @gilles yeah I was at work when I wrote it, so I clarified after I got home and thought about it. Commented Dec 7, 2010 at 1:11
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    Depending on what you're doing, udisks. Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 17:06
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    I found a useful page describing many common hardware commands with a search on Google. The disk drive ones include lshw (List Hardware), hwinfo (Hardware Information), lsscsi (List scsi devices), lsusb (List usb buses/devices), lsblk (List block devices), fdisk -l and mount. More information at binarytides.com/linux-commands-hardware-info. Commented Oct 1, 2017 at 14:35

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This is highly platform-dependent. Also different methods may treat edge cases differently (“fake” disks of various kinds, RAID volumes, …).

On modern udev installations, there are symbolic links to storage media in subdirectories of /dev/disk, that let you look up a disk or a partition by serial number (/dev/disk/by-id/), by UUID (/dev/disk/by-uuid), by filesystem label (/dev/disk/by-label/) or by hardware connectivity (/dev/disk/by-path/).

Under Linux 2.6, each disk and disk-like device has an entry in /sys/block. Under Linux since the dawn of time, disks and partitions are listed in /proc/partitions. Alternatively, you can use lshw: lshw -class disk.

Linux also provides the lsblk utility which displays a nice tree view of the storage volumes (since util-linux 2.19, not present on embedded devices with BusyBox).

If you have an fdisk or disklabel utility, it might be able to tell you what devices it's able to work on.

You will find utility names for many unix variants on the Rosetta Stone for Unix, in particular the “list hardware configuration” and “read a disk label” lines.

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    Ooo; that Rosetta Stone site is excellent Commented Dec 6, 2010 at 15:22
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    sudo lshw -class disk made my day, simple and intuitive output. Commented Aug 22, 2020 at 11:07
  • or shorter with sudo lshw -C disk (upper case c) Commented Dec 12, 2024 at 22:38
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lsblk will list all block devices. It lends itself well to scripting:

$ lsblk -io KNAME,TYPE,SIZE,MODEL KNAME TYPE SIZE MODEL sda disk 149.1G TOSHIBA MK1637GS sda1 part 23.3G sda2 part 28G sda3 part 93.6G sda4 part 4.3G sr0 rom 1024M CD/DVDW TS-L632M

lsblk is present in util-linux package and is thus far more universal than proposed alternatives.

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    If you only need the physical disks, use lsblk -d, -d means no dependency message listed. Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 8:09
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    Indeed =) $ lsblk -ido KNAME,TYPE,SIZE,MODEL (part of util-linux which is part of base on Arch) instantly gives the information requested, and without the need to be root. Note that it provides the Device model, not Model Family. smarctl -i /dev/<device> advised by Skippy did it, eg: "Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12" (missing from lsblk -ido: "disk 465,8G ST3500418AS"). Commented Sep 3, 2015 at 13:47
  • What I learned recently: -f is nice. So nice it might deserve being aliased in. Commented Jul 12, 2024 at 10:26
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How about

lshw -class disk
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    not bad... I'll double check it when I get off, I'm sure it works... unfortunately it's (lshw) not installed on the server, and I suspect the answer will be we're not installing it. Commented Dec 6, 2010 at 8:23
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    For some reason, lshw does not list hard disks. Commented Nov 6, 2013 at 0:44
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    When not run as root, it lists no disks, but also gives no error. Commented Jul 1, 2014 at 11:26
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    bash: lshw: command not found Commented Jan 25, 2017 at 18:51
  • skips NVMe SSDs Commented Nov 14, 2019 at 4:21
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hwinfo helps:

> hwinfo --disk 21: IDE 00.0: 10600 Disk [Created at block.245] Unique ID: 3OOL.8MZXfAWnuH8 Parent ID: w7Y8.1T_0outZkp6 SysFS ID: /class/block/sda SysFS BusID: 0:0:0:0 SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0 Hardware Class: disk Model: "Hitachi HTS54322" Vendor: "Hitachi" Device: "HTS54322" Revision: "ESBO" Driver: "ahci", "sd" Driver Modules: "ahci" Device File: /dev/sda Device Files: /dev/sda, /dev/disk/by-id/ata-Hitachi_HTS543225A7A384_E2021342GEPG4J, /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_Hitachi_HTS5432_E2021342GEPG4J, /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0, /dev/disk/by-id/wwn-0x5000cca614c6395e Device Number: block 8:0-8:15 BIOS id: 0x80 Geometry (BIOS EDD): CHS 484521/16/63 Size (BIOS EDD): 488397168 sectors Geometry (BIOS Legacy): CHS 1023/255/63 Drive status: no medium Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown Attached to: #17 (SATA controller) > hwinfo --block --short disk: /dev/sda Hitachi HTS54322 partition: /dev/sda1 Partition /dev/sda2 Partition /dev/sda3 Partition /dev/sda4 Partition /dev/sda5 Partition
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@Giles says this is highly platform-dependent. Here's one such example.

I'm running a CentOS 5.5 system. This system has 4 disks and a 3ware RAID controller.

In my case, lshw -class disk, cat /proc/scsi/scsi and parted --list shows the RAID controller (3ware 9650SE-4LP). This doesn't show the actual disks:

only shows the 3ware RAID controller which provides the /dev/sda volume:

# lshw -class disk *-disk description: SCSI Disk product: 9650SE-4LP DISK vendor: AMCC physical id: 0.0.0 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0 logical name: /dev/sda # cat /proc/scsi/scsi Attached devices: Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00 Vendor: AMCC Model: 9650SE-4LP DISK Rev: 4.06 Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 # parted --list Model: AMCC 9650SE-4LP DISK (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB

In order to see the disks which lie underneath, I had to install the tw_cli utility from 3ware, and ask the controller itself.

# tw_cli info c0 ... VPort Status Unit Size Type Phy Encl-Slot Model ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ p0 OK u0 931.51 GB SATA 0 - WDC WD1002FBYS-02A6 p1 OK u0 931.51 GB SATA 1 - WDC WD1002FBYS-02A6
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Since both "Can I see what HDD I have installed?" and "How do I determine the make & model of my storage devices?" are marked as duplicates of this question, I'm surprised no-one mentioned hdparm and smartctl. Having a look at a few machines, seems that either of them (when it's not both) is often found already installed in standard (even old) linux distributions.

# smartctl -i /dev/sda smartctl 6.1 2013-03-16 r3800 [i686-linux-3.9.9-301.fc19.i686.PAE] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Toshiba 2.5" HDD MK..56GSY Device Model: TOSHIBA MK1656GSY Serial Number: 60PKT43CT LU WWN Device Id: 5 000039 2919874b6 Firmware Version: LH013D User Capacity: 160 041 885 696 bytes [160 GB] Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated) SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s Local Time is: Mon Jul 22 11:13:37 2013 CEST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled # hdparm -i /dev/sda /dev/sda: Model=TOSHIBA MK1656GSY, FwRev=LH013D, SerialNo=60PKT43CT Config={ Fixed } RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=16384kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=312581808 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 AdvancedPM=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-3,4,5,6,7 * signifies the current active mode

As usual, check manpage for more options.

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  • It should be noted that the smartctl way even works on Cygwin, +1! Just loop over possible device names and see if smartctl returns that the drive supports SMART. Commented Sep 12, 2013 at 12:35
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I'm running fedora 14 and lshw is not available here (at least not by default). However in my case, I used fdisk -l command (as a root user) to get the following output:

Disk /dev/sda: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1044 cylinders, total 16777216 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x0006a697 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 1026047 512000 83 Linux /dev/sda2 1026048 16777215 7875584 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/sdb: 8589 MB, 8589934592 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1044 cylinders, total 16777216 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/dm-0: 6509 MB, 6509559808 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 791 cylinders, total 12713984 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table Disk /dev/dm-1: 1543 MB, 1543503872 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 187 cylinders, total 3014656 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table
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  • Use fdisk -l /dev/sd? or fdisk -l /dev/hd? to avoid bring in dm devices. Commented Feb 11, 2012 at 23:23
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I found in other SE answer, inxi tool as very convenient:

inxi -Dxx Drives: HDD Total Size: 810.2GB (42.9% used) ID-1: /dev/sdc model: ST3160827AS size: 160.0GB serial: 5MT2HMH6 ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD3200JD size: 320.1GB serial: WD-WCAMR1302926 ID-3: /dev/sda model: ST380817AS size: 80.0GB serial: 4MR2EWBE ID-4: /dev/sdd model: ST3250824AS size: 250.1GB serial: 9ND08GKX
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sfdisk -l

will give you detailed info about hardware/physical disks even if they are not mounted.

the program is pre-installed on all Linux variants that I have used, but you have to be root to use it.

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This worked for me:

fdisk -l 2>/dev/null | grep "Disk \/" | grep -v "\/dev\/md" | awk '{print $2}' | sed -e 's/://g'
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  • This worked very well for a server at work. I currently have 39 disk devices in it. It's a dual cpu SuperMicro server with 256GB of RAM and 36 hot swap 3.5 inch slots + 2 2.5 hotswap SATA SSD slots for the OS + dual internal NVMe for cache. I wanted a summary of the drives so that I can write / modify a script for nagios to monitor and make sense of the drives! Commented May 25, 2024 at 16:37
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Many of the commands listed will help you look for disks that have already been recognized by the system at boot. With modern drives, you may find yourself looking for something that you inserted while the machine was up and running (I did). I like the advice from http://fredericiana.com/2010/06/15/hot-plugging-a-sata-drive-under-linux/:

Try this to rescan the SCSI hosts (each SATA port appears as a SCSI bus):

echo "0 0 0" >/sys/class/scsi_host/host/scan

...Then you can use your Linux utilities like fdisk to show you information about the disks that were found.

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sudo gparted will show all this in a GUI.

(You didn't specify you need to do it within a terminal so I wonder why this solution was missing.)

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On embedded Linux systems where lsblk nor lsscsi nor lsblk is not installed :

$ grep . /sys/class/block/sd*/device/model /sys/class/block/sda/device/model:Samsung SSD 860 /sys/class/block/sdb/device/model:WDC WD4003FFBX-6 /sys/class/block/sdc/device/model:WDC WD4003FFBX-6 /sys/class/block/sdd/device/model:WDC WD4003FFBX-6

or if lsscsi is installed :

$ lsscsi [0:0:0:0] disk ATA Samsung SSD 860 2B6Q /dev/sda [1:0:0:0] disk ATA WDC WD4003FFBX-6 0A83 /dev/sdb [2:0:0:0] disk ATA WDC WD4003FFBX-6 0A83 /dev/sdc [3:0:0:0] disk ATA WDC WD4003FFBX-6 0A83 /dev/sdd

or if lsblk is installed :

$ lsblk -do NAME,TYPE,SIZE,MODEL NAME TYPE SIZE MODEL sda disk 477G Samsung_SSD_860_PRO_512GB sdb disk 3.7T WDC_WD4003FFBX-68MU3N0 sdc disk 3.7T WDC_WD4003FFBX-68MU3N0 sdd disk 3.7T WDC_WD4003FFBX-68MU3N0
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Another solution

lsblk | grep disk

Output in my case:

sda 8:0 0 1,8T 0 disk sdb 8:16 0 931,5G 0 disk

As you can see, I have two physical disks.

And contrary to fdisk or sfdisk, you don't need root permissions to run it.

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    The cleaner way would be to use lsblk --nodeps. (Add --noheadings to get exactly your output.) Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 22:48
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consider

alias lsblk2='lsblk -o size,fstype,model,name,serial,uuid'

but when having a hardware raid controller, you will only see the block device that the raid controller presents itself as to linux, not all the disks. In this case you need to use smartctl with the -d option.

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To return the number of block devices, without fancy tools nor obscure syntax or parameters:

 ls /sys/block/* | grep block | grep sd | wc -l

In my local test cases, 47 on my biggest war-machine and 1 on my laptop.

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  • 3
    This is off by 500% on one of my systems (Ubuntu 12.04) and by 200% on another system. Commented Apr 7, 2014 at 12:03
  • "number of block devices" was not the question. Commented Jan 22, 2020 at 12:36

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