How to Increase the Number of Default Volumes

The nmd field in the /kernel/drv/md.conf file allocates the number of volumes allowed and the namespace available for volumes. This task describes how to increase the number of volumes from the default value of 128 and the namespace from the default range of d0 through d127. If you need to configure more volumes than the default allows, you can increase this value up to 8192.

If you lower this number at any point, any volume existing between the old number and the new number might not be available, potentially resulting in data loss. If you see a message such as “md: d200: not configurable, check /kernel/drv/md.conf,” you must edit the md.conf file and increase the value, as explained in this task.

Before You Begin

Review Prerequisites for Troubleshooting the System.

Steps

1. Edit the /kernel/drv/md.conf file.

2. Change the value of the nmd field. Values up to 8192 are supported.

3. Save your changes.

4. Perform a reconfiguration reboot to build the volume names.

   # reboot -- -r

Example 22–3 Increasing the Number of Default Volumes

Here is a sample md.conf file that is configured for 256 volumes.

#
#ident "@(#)md.conf   1.7     94/04/04 SMI"
#
# Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994 by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
#
#
#pragma ident   "@(#)md.conf    2.1     00/07/07 SMI"
#
# Copyright (c) 1992-1999 by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
# All rights reserved.
#
name="md" parent="pseudo" nmd=256 md_nsets=4;