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System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems     Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 Information Library
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Document Information

About This Book

1.  Managing Removable Media (Overview)

2.  Managing Removable Media (Tasks)

3.  Accessing Removable Media (Tasks)

4.  Writing CDs and DVDs (Tasks)

5.  Managing Devices (Overview/Tasks)

6.  Dynamically Configuring Devices (Tasks)

7.  Using USB Devices (Overview)

8.  Using USB Devices (Tasks)

9.  Using InfiniBand Devices (Overview/Tasks)

10.  Managing Disks (Overview)

What's New in Disk Management?

The diskinfo Command

Multiple Disk Sector Size Support

Two-Terabyte Disk Support for Installing and Booting the Oracle Solaris OS

iSNS Support in the Solaris iSCSI Target and Initiator

Solaris iSCSI Target Support

x86: Disk Management in the GRUB Boot Environment

Support for SCSI Disks That are Larger Than 2 Terabytes

Where to Find Disk Management Tasks

Overview of Disk Management

Disk Terminology

About Disk Labels

EFI Disk Label

Comparison of the EFI Label and the VTOC Label

Restrictions of the EFI Disk Label

Support for EFI-Labeled Disks on x86 Systems

Installing a System With an EFI-Labeled Disk

Managing Disks With EFI Disks Labels

Troubleshooting Problems With EFI Disk Labels

About Disk Slices

Disk Slices

Using Raw Data Slices

Slice Arrangements on Multiple Disks

Determining Which Slices to Use for UFS File Systems

format Utility

When to Use the format Utility

Guidelines for Using the format Utility

Formatting a Disk

Partitioning a Disk

Partition Table Terminology

Displaying Partition Table Information

Using the Free Hog Slice

11.  Administering Disks (Tasks)

12.  SPARC: Setting Up Disks (Tasks)

13.  x86: Setting Up Disks (Tasks)

14.  Configuring Oracle Solaris iSCSI Targets and Initiators (Tasks)

15.  The format Utility (Reference)

16.  Managing File Systems (Overview)

17.  Creating and Mounting File Systems (Tasks)

18.  Using The CacheFS File System (Tasks)

19.  Configuring Additional Swap Space (Tasks)

20.  Checking UFS File System Consistency (Tasks)

21.  UFS File System (Reference)

22.  Backing Up and Restoring UFS File Systems (Overview)

23.  Backing Up UFS Files and File Systems (Tasks)

24.  Using UFS Snapshots (Tasks)

25.  Restoring UFS Files and File Systems (Tasks)

26.  UFS Backup and Restore Commands (Reference)

27.  Copying Files and File Systems (Tasks)

28.  Managing Tape Drives (Tasks)

Index

What's New in Disk Management?

This section describes new disk management features in the Oracle Solaris release.

For a complete listing of new Oracle Solaris features and a description of Oracle Solaris releases, see Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 What’s New.

The diskinfo Command

Oracle Solaris 10 8/11: This Oracle Solaris release provides the diskinfo command that you can use to display the relationship between disk paths and disk slots (or bays) for devices that are found on the system. Devices that can be identified by the diskinfo command are generally JBODs and direct-attached devices in blade systems.

You can use the diskinfo -a command to display information about all the disks on the system. For example:

# diskinfo -a


Enclosure path:         0631AM1028
Chassis Serial Number:  0631AM1028
Chassis Model:          Sun-Fire-X4200-Server

Label      Disk name               Vendor   Product          Vers
---------- ----------------------  -------- ---------------- ----
HD0        c1t0d0                  FUJITSU  MAY2073RCSUN72G  0401
HD1        c1t1d0                  FUJITSU  MAY2073RCSUN72G  0401

After you identify the disks on the system, you can display disk path information for a specific device. For example:

# diskinfo -d c1t1d0 -p


Enclosure path:         0631AM1028
Chassis Serial Number:  0631AM1028
Chassis Model:          Sun-Fire-X4200-Server

Label      Disk name               Vendor   Product          Vers
---------- ----------------------  -------- ---------------- ----
HD1        c1t1d0                  FUJITSU  MAY2073RCSUN72G  0401
        Physical path
        -------------------------------- 
        0: /pci@0,0/pci1022,7450@2/pci1000,3060@3/sd@1,0

With multiple enclosures on a system, display all the disks within a specific enclosure. For example:

# diskinfo -e 0631AM1028


Enclosure path:         0631AM1028
Chassis Serial Number:  0631AM1028
Chassis Model:          Sun-Fire-X4200-Server

Label      Disk name               Vendor   Product          Vers
---------- ----------------------  -------- ---------------- ----
HD0        c1t0d0                  FUJITSU  MAY2073RCSUN72G  0401
HD1        c1t1d0                  FUJITSU  MAY2073RCSUN72G  0401

For more information, see diskinfo(1M).

Multiple Disk Sector Size Support

Solaris 10 9/10: Previous Solaris releases supported a disk sector size of 512 bytes. In this Oracle Solaris release, disks with sector sizes of 512 bytes, 1024 bytes, 2048 bytes, or 4096 bytes are supported. Large sector disks provide greater disk capacity, higher reliability, and greater efficiency for data transfer and faster drive maintenance.

The ability to boot and install from a large sector disk is not currently supported.

Two-Terabyte Disk Support for Installing and Booting the Oracle Solaris OS

Oracle Solaris 10 10/09: In previous Solaris releases, you could not install and boot the Solaris OS from a disk that was greater than 1 TB in size. In this Solaris release, you can install and boot the Solaris OS from a disk that is up to 2 TB in size. In previous releases, you also had to use an EFI label for a disk that is larger than 1 TB. In this release, you can use the VTOC label on any size disk, but the addressable space by the VTOC is limited to 2 TB.

The Oracle Solaris disk drivers and disk utilities have been updated to provide the following support:

Keep in mind that you cannot move a disk over 1 TB with a legacy MBR or a legacy VTOC to a previous Solaris release. EFI labeled disks continue to work as in previous Solaris releases.

For more information about the EFI label changes in this release, see EFI Disk Label.

iSNS Support in the Solaris iSCSI Target and Initiator

Solaris 10 8/07: This Solaris release provides support for the Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) protocol in the Solaris iSCSI target and initiator software. The iSNS protocol allows for the automated discovery, management, and configuration of iSCSI devices on a TCP/IP network.

In this Solaris release, you can use the iscsitadm command to add access to an existing third-party iSNS server or you can user the Solaris iSNS server to automatically discover the iSCSI devices in your network. The iSNS server can be specified by hostname or IP address. After you add the iSNS server information, you will need to enable access to the server.

For information about configuring the Oracle Solaris iSCSI target to use a third-party iSNS server, see Chapter 14, Configuring Oracle Solaris iSCSI Targets and Initiators (Tasks) and iscsitadm(1M).

Solaris iSCSI Target Support

Solaris 10 8/07: This Solaris release provides support for iSCSI target devices, which can be disk or tape devices. Previous Solaris releases provide support for iSCSI initiators. The advantage of setting up Solaris iSCSI targets is you might have existing Fibre-Channel devices that can be connected to clients without the cost of Fibre-Channel HBAs. In addition, systems with dedicated arrays can now export replicated storage with ZFS or UFS file systems.

You can use the iscsitadm command to set up and manage your iSCSI target devices. For the disk device that you select as your iSCSI target, you'll need to provide an equivalently sized ZFS or UFS file system as the backing store for the iSCSI daemon.

After the target device is set up, use the iscsiadm command to identify your iSCSI targets, which will discover and use the iSCSI target device.

For more information, see Chapter 14, Configuring Oracle Solaris iSCSI Targets and Initiators (Tasks), iscsiadm(1M), and iscsitadm(1M).

x86: Disk Management in the GRUB Boot Environment

Solaris 10 1/06: The GRUB boot menu has replaced the previous method for booting an x86 system. In the area of disk management, you use the GRUB interface when booting from an alternative device to replace a system disk or when installing the bootblocks.

The GRUB boot environment provides the following features:

In the GRUB environment, you cannot use the fmthard command to install the boot blocks automatically when run on an x86 system. You must install the boot blocks separately.

For detailed feature information and instructions on using the new GRUB based booting on x86 systems, see Booting an x86 Based System by Using GRUB (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

This feature is not available on SPARC systems.

Support for SCSI Disks That are Larger Than 2 Terabytes

Solaris 10 1/06: The SCSI driver, ssd or sd, supports 2 terabytes and greater. The SCSI driver, ssd or sd, is limited to 2 TB in previous Solaris releases.

The format utility can be used to label, configure, and partition these larger disks. For information about using the EFI disk label on large disks and restrictions with the fdisk utility, see Restrictions of the EFI Disk Label.