How to distinguish between rotational and non-rotational block devices

Distinguish between rotational and non-rotational block devices.

List block devices to determine if it is rotational type.

$ lsblk --nodeps --exclude 1,7 --output NAME,PATH,ROTA

NAME    PATH         ROTA
sda     /dev/sda        1
sr0     /dev/sr0        1
nvme0n1 /dev/nvme0n1    0

Use JSON format for machine friendly output.

$ lsblk --nodeps  --exclude 1,7 --output NAME,PATH,ROTA --json

{
   "blockdevices": [
      {"name":"sda", "path":"/dev/sda", "rota":true},
      {"name":"sr0", "path":"/dev/sr0", "rota":true},
      {"name":"nvme0n1", "path":"/dev/nvme0n1", "rota":false}
   ]
}

Now, use awk to display rotational devices.

$ lsblk --nodeps  --exclude 1,7 --output PATH,ROTA | awk '$2~/1/ {print $1}'

/dev/sda
/dev/sr0

Alternatively, use jq to parse JSON and display non-rotational devices.

$ lsblk --nodeps  --exclude 1,7 --output PATH,ROTA --json | jq --raw-output '.blockdevices[] | select(.rota==false) | .path'

/dev/nvme0n1

Also, find utility is enough to identify rotational devices.

$ find /sys/block/*/device/block/*/queue/rotational

/sys/block/sda/device/block/sda/queue/rotational
/sys/block/sr0/device/block/sr0/queue/rotational

Additional notes

Please read Queue sysfs files for more information.

Additional notes#

Additional notes