[TriLUG] Other ways to get to iostat data?

[Jason Watts]

All,

I have an interesting (to me at least) project I am working on for work.  I
need to get disk usage stats out of a very stripped down purpose rebuilt
redhat linux distro.  Does anyone have any insight on how/were iostat is
pulling its data?  I cannot install new tools or I will have
my warranty voided on some rather expensive hardware, but I am allowed to
run my own scripts and add things to cron.  A quick google
search didn't seem to turn up much on the inner workings of iostat  so I was
hoping the infinite wisdom of trilug could get me going a bit further on
this little mini project I have been tasked.

Thanks
Jason