0 

root 

Both 

Holds the files and directories that make up the operating system. 

1 

swap 

Both 

Provides virtual memory, or swap space. Swap space is used when running programs are too large to fit in a computer's memory. The Solaris operating environment then "swaps" programs from memory to the disk and back as needed.

2 

-- 

Both 

Refers to the entire disk, by convention. It is defined automatically by Sun's format utility and the Solaris installation programs. The size of this slice should not be changed.

3 

/export

Server only 

Holds alternative versions of the operating system. These alternative versions are required by client systems whose architectures differ from that of the server.  

4 

/export/swap

Server only 

Provides virtual memory space for the client systems. 

5 

/opt

Both 

Holds application software added to a system. If a slice is not allocated for this file system during installation, the /opt directory is put in slice 0.

6 

/usr

Both 

Holds operating system commands--also known as executables--that are run by users. This slice also holds documentation, system programs (init and syslogd, for example) and library routines.

7 

/home or /export/home

Both 

Holds files created by users. 

8 

-- 

Both 

Contains information necessary for Solaris to boot from the hard disk. It resides at the beginning of the Solaris partition (although the slice number itself does not indicate this), and is known as the boot slice. 

9 

-- 

Both 

Provides an area reserved for alternate disk blocks. Slice 9 is known as the alternate sector slice.