Creating RAID-5 Volumes

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Caution - Do not create volumes larger than 1 Tbyte if you expect to run the Solaris software with a 32-bit kernel or if you expect to use a version of the Solaris OS prior to the Solaris 9 4/03 release. See Overview of Multi-Terabyte Support in Solaris Volume Manager for more information about large volume support in Solaris Volume Manager.

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How to Create a RAID-5 Volume

Before You Begin

Check Prerequisites for Creating Solaris Volume Manager Components and Background Information for Creating RAID-5 Volumes.

• To create a RAID-5 volume, use one of the following methods:

  • From the Enhanced Storage tool within the Solaris Management Console, open the Volumes node. Choose Action⇒Create Volume. Then, follow the steps in the wizard. For more information, see the online help.

  • Use the following form of the metainit command:

    # metainit wolume-name -r component component component -i interlace-value

    volume-name

    Specifies the name of the volume to create.

    -r

    Specifies to create a RAID-5 volume.

    component

    Specifies a slice or soft partition to include in the RAID-5 volume. At least 3 components are required.

    -i

    Specifies an interlace value.

    For more information, see the metainit(1M) man page.

Example 15-1 Creating a RAID-5 Volume of Three Slices

In this example, the RAID-5 volume d45 is created with the -r option from 3 slices. Because no interlace value is specified, d45 uses the default of 16 Kbytes. The system verifies that the RAID-5 volume has been set up and begins initializing the volume.

You must wait for the initialization to finish before you can use the RAID-5 volume.

# metainit d45 -r c2t3d0s2 c3t0d0s2 c4t0d0s2
d45: RAID is setup

See Also

To prepare the newly created RAID-5 volume for a file system, see Chapter 18, Creating UFS, TMPFS, and LOFS File Systems (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems. Some applications, such as a database, do not use a file system. These applications instead use the raw volume. The application must have its own way of recognizing the volume.

To associate a hot spare pool with a RAID-5 volume, see How to Associate a Hot Spare Pool With a Volume.