How to Create a LUN

Use this procedure to create a logical unit number (LUN) from unassigned disk drives or remaining capacity.

This product supports the use of hardware RAID and host-based software RAID. For host-based software RAID, this product only supports RAID levels 0+1 and 1+0. You must use hardware RAID for Oracle Parallel Server (OPS) data stored on the StorEdge A3500. Also, do not place OPS data under volume management control. You must place all other data stored on the StorEdge A3500 under volume management control. Use either hardware RAID, host-based software RAID, or both to manage your non-OPS data.

Hardware RAID uses the StorEdge A3500's hardware redundancy to ensure that independent hardware failures do not impact data availability. Host-based software RAID ensures that independent hardware failures do not impact data availability when an entire StorEdge A3500 is offline by mirroring across separate StorEdge A3500 disk arrays. Although you can use hardware RAID and host-based software RAID concurrently, you only need one RAID solution to maintain a high degree data availability.

If you use host-based software RAID, it is important to identify the impact of StorEdge A3500 LUN configuration and hardware maintenance procedures on the availability of LUNs. If you use StorEdge A3500's hardware RAID, you can perform most maintenance procedures in "Maintaining a StorEdge A3500 Disk Array" without volume management disruptions. However, if you use host-based software RAID without hardware RAID, some maintenance procedures in "Maintaining a StorEdge A3500 Disk Array" will require additional volume management administration because the availability of the LUNs being used by the volume manager may be impacted.

1. On one node, with all cluster nodes booted and attached to the StorEdge A3500, create a LUN.

   Shortly after the LUN formatting completes, a logical name for the new LUN appears in /dev/rdsk on all cluster nodes attached to the StorEdge A3500 array.

   For the procedure on creating a LUN, see Sun StorEdge RAID Manager User's Guide.

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   Note -

   The RAID Manager 6.x graphical user interface does not consistently display Solaris logical device names. Use the format(1M) command to verify Solaris logical device names.

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2. After the new logical name you created in Step 1 appears in /dev/rdsk on all cluster nodes, on one node, update the global device namespace.

   # scgdevs

3. If you want a volume manager to manage the new LUN you created in Step 1, run the appropriate Solstice DiskSuite and VERITAS Volume Manager commands to incorporate the new LUN into a diskset or disk group.

   For more information, see your Solstice DiskSuite or VERITAS Volume Manager documentation.