How to List SCSI and SATA Devices Using the lsscsi Command in Linux

When you are managing a Linux server, identifying exactly how your physical storage drives are connected to the motherboard is critical for troubleshooting hardware failures or expanding your storage array. While commands like lsblk will list the block storage devices (like /dev/sda) and their partitions, they do not provide detailed information about the underlying storage controller architecture. To view a complete, highly structured list of all SCSI, SATA, and SAS devices attached to the system, you must use the lsscsi command.

Installing the Utility

Unlike lsblk or fdisk, the lsscsi utility is not always installed by default on minimal Linux server distributions. If you run the command and receive a “command not found” error, you must install it via your package manager.

On Ubuntu or Debian-based systems, run:

sudo apt install lsscsi

On CentOS, RHEL, or Fedora systems, run:

sudo dnf install lsscsi

How to Read the Standard Output

Once installed, you can query your hardware by simply running the command with no arguments:

lsscsi

The terminal will output a neatly formatted table. A typical line of output looks like this:

[0:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      Samsung SSD 860  2B6Q  /dev/sda

This single line contains a wealth of diagnostic information.

• [0:0:0:0]: This is the SCSI address (Host:Channel:Target:LUN). This tells you exactly which port on the HBA (Host Bus Adapter) or motherboard SATA controller the drive is physically plugged into.
• disk: This confirms the type of device. It might say disk for a hard drive, or cd/dvd for an optical drive.
• ATA: This is the vendor name or protocol. Modern SATA drives utilize the ATA protocol over the SCSI subsystem in Linux.
• Samsung SSD 860: This is the hardware model name pulled directly from the drive’s firmware.
• 2B6Q: This is the current firmware revision running on the drive.
• /dev/sda: This is the standard Linux device node assigned to the hardware.

Advanced Filtering and Details

If you are managing a massive enterprise server with dozens of drives, the standard output can be overwhelming. You can filter the output by device type. For example, if you only want to see CD/DVD drives (which are handled by the SCSI subsystem), use the --type flag.

lsscsi --type 5

(Note: Type 0 is for disks, and Type 5 is for CD/ROM devices).

If you need deeper hardware diagnostics, you can append the -s (size) flag to instantly append the total storage capacity of each drive to the end of the output row, or the -t (transport) flag to reveal the exact SATA speed negotiation (e.g., sata 6.0 Gbps) to ensure your cables and controllers are operating at maximum bandwidth.