Installation Requirements for Oracle Solaris ZFS

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

• Solaris release information:

  The ability to install and boot from an Oracle Solaris ZFS root file system is available, starting with the Solaris 10 10/09 release. To perform an Oracle Solaris Live Upgrade operation to migrate to a ZFS root file system, you must have installed or upgraded to at least the Solaris 10 10/09 release.

• Oracle Solaris ZFS storage pool space requirements:

  Because swap and dump devices are not shared in a ZFS root environment, 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.

  Swap volume size is calculated at half the size of physical memory, but no more than 2 Gbytes, and no less than 512 Mbytes. Dump volume size is calculated by the kernel, based on dumpadm information and the size of physical memory. You can adjust the size of your swap and dump volumes to sizes of your choosing either in an Oracle Solaris JumpStart profile or during an initial installation, as long as the new sizes support system operation. For more information, see ZFS Support for Swap and Dump Devices in Oracle Solaris ZFS Administration Guide.