NVME-WDC-DRIVE-ES(1) NVMe Manual NVME-WDC-DRIVE-ES(1)

nvme-wdc-drive-essentials - Retrieve WDC device's drive essentials bin files and save to a tar file.

nvme [<global-options>] wdc drive-essentials <device>
                        [--dir-name=<DIRECTORY>, -d <DIRECTORY>]

For the NVMe device given, captures the drive essential bin files and saves them into a tar file. The tar file will be in the following format: DRIVE_ESSENTIALS_<Serial Num>_<FW Revision>_<Date>_<Time>.tar.gz e.g. DRIVE_ESSENTIALS_A00FD8CA_1048_20170713_091731.tar.gz

The <device> parameter is mandatory; NVMe character device (ex: /dev/nvme0).

This will only work on WDC devices supporting this feature. Results for any other device are undefined.

-d <DIRECTORY>, --dir-name=<DIRECTORY>

Output directory; defaults to current working directory.

The following options are defined at the top-level nvme command and are available to this subcommand:

--dry-run

Print the command that would be executed, but do not actually execute it.

--no-ioctl-probing

Disable probing for 64-bit IOCTL support.

--no-retries

Disable retry logic on transient errors.

-o <fmt>, --output-format=<fmt>

Set the reporting format to normal, tabular, 'json, or binary. Only one output format may be used at a time.

--output-format-version=<version>

Select the output format version. Version 1 uses the original field naming, while version 2 (default) provides more consistent and script-friendly field names.

--timeout=<ms>

Set the timeout for the command in milliseconds.

-v, --verbose

Increase the level of detail in the output. May be specified multiple times to further increase verbosity.

These options can also be set as machine-wide defaults in nvme-cli.conf(5). A command-line flag always overrides the file.

•Gets the drive essentials data files from the device and saves the tar file in current directory (e.g. DRIVE_ESSENTIALS_A00FD8CA_1048_20170713_091731.tar.gz): 
# nvme wdc drive-essentials /dev/nvme0
•Gets the drive essentials data files from the device and saves the tar file to specified directory (e.g. /tmp/DRIVE_ESSENTIALS_A00FD8CA_1048_20170713_091731): 
# nvme wdc drive-essentials /dev/nvme0 -d /tmp/

Part of the nvme-user suite.

09/18/2026 NVMe