Solaris Installation Requirements for ZFS

Before performing a new installation of the Solaris software or using Solaris Live Upgrade to migrate a UFS root file system to a ZFS root file system, make sure the following requirements are met:

• Solaris release information:

  The ability to install and boot from a ZFS root file system is available in the Solaris 10 11/06 release. To perform a Solaris Live Upgrade operation to migrate to a ZFS root file system, you must have installed or upgraded to the Solaris 10 11/06 release.

• ZFS storage pool space requirements:

  The minimum amount of available pool space that is required for a bootable ZFS root file system is larger than for a bootable UFS root file system because swap and dump devices are not shared in a ZFS root environment.

  If you select a ZFS root file system during an initial software installation, or if you use Solaris Live Upgrade to migrate from a UFS root file system to a ZFS root file system, a swap area is created on a ZFS volume in the ZFS root pool. The default swap area is sized at 1/2 the size of physical memory, but no more than 2 Gbytes. A ZFS volume is also created for the dump device. The dump device is sized at 1/2 the size of physical memory, but no more than 2 Gbytes. Currently, the swap area and the dump device must reside on separate ZFS volumes.

  For more information, see ZFS Support for Swap and Dump Devices in Solaris ZFS Administration Guide.