Multiterabyte Disk Support With EFI Disk Labels

This multiterabyte disk support is available only for systems that run a 64-bit kernel. This feature is new in the Software Express pilot program and in the Solaris 9 4/03 release. This feature is included in the Solaris 10 3/05 release.

The Solaris 10 OS provides support for disks that are larger than 1 terabyte (Tbyte) on systems that run a 64-bit Solaris kernel.

The Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) label provides support for physical disks and virtual disk volumes. The UFS file system is compatible with the EFI disk label, and you can create a UFS file system that is greater than 1 Tbyte. This release also includes updated disk utilities for managing disks that are greater than 1 Tbyte.

However, the SCSI driver, ssd, currently supports disks only up to 2 Tbytes. If you need greater disk capacity than 2 Tbytes, use a disk and storage management product such as Solaris Volume Manager to create a larger device.

For more information on using the EFI disk label, see the System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems. This guide contains important information and restrictions. This information concerns using the EFI disk label with existing software products.

The Solaris Volume Manager software can also be used to manage disks that are greater than 1 Tbyte in this Solaris release. See Multiterabyte Volume Support in Solaris Volume Manager.