What Do Disk Sets Do?

A shared disk set, or simply disk set, is a set of disk drives that contain volumes and hot spares that can be shared exclusively but not at the same time by multiple hosts. Additionally, disk sets provide a separate namespace within which Solaris Volume Manager volumes can be managed.

A disk set supports data redundancy and data availability. If one host fails, another host can take over the failed host's disk set. (This type of configuration is known as a failover configuration.) Although each host can control the set of disks, only one host can control it at a time.

Disk sets are supported on both SPARC based and x86 based platforms.

Disk sets are intended, in part, for use with Sun Cluster, Solstice HA (High Availability), or another supported third-party HA framework. Solaris Volume Manager by itself does not provide all the functionality necessary to implement a failover configuration.