How to Create a Hot Spare Pool

Do not create volumes or hot spares larger than 1TB if you expect to run the Solaris Operating Environment with a 32–bit kernel or if you expect to use a version of the Solaris Operating Environment prior to Solaris 9 4/03. See Overview of Large Volume Support in Solaris Volume Manager for more information about large volume support in Solaris Volume Manager.

Solaris Volume Manager will not warn you if you create a hot spare that is not large enough. If the hot spare is not equal to, or larger than, the volume to which it is attached, the hot spare will not work.

1. Check Prerequisites for Creating Solaris Volume Manager Components.

2. To create a hot spare pool, use one of the following methods:

   • From the Enhanced Storage tool within the Solaris Management Console, open the Hot Spare Pools node, then choose Action->Create Hot Spare Pool. For more information, see the online help.

   • Use the following form of the metainit command:

     metainit hot-spare-pool-name ctds-for-slice

     where ctds-for-slice is repeated for each slice in the hot spare pool. See the metainit(1M) man page for more information.

Example—Creating a Hot Spare Pool

# metainit hsp001 c2t2d0s2 c3t2d0s2
hsp001: Hotspare pool is setup

In this example, the hot spare pool hsp001 contains two disks as the hot spares. The system confirms that the hot spare pool has been set up.

Where to Go From Here

To add more hot spares to the hot spare pool, see How to Add Additional Slices to a Hot Spare Pool. After you create the hot spare pool, you need to associate it with a submirror or RAID 5 volume. See How to Associate a Hot Spare Pool With a Volume.