Solaris Express Installation Guide: Planning for Installation and Upgrade

x86: Partitioning Recommendations

When using the Solaris OS on x86 based systems, follow these guidelines for partitioning your system.

The Solaris installation program uses a default boot-disk partition layout. These partitions are called fdisk partitions. An fdisk partition is a logical partition of a disk drive that is dedicated to a particular operating system on x86 based systems. To install the Solaris software, you must set up at least one Solaris fdisk partition on an x86 based system. x86 based systems allow up to four different fdisk partitions on a disk. These partitions can be used to hold individual operating systems. Each operating system must be located on a unique fdisk partition. A system can only have one Solaris fdisk partition per disk.

Table 4–8 x86: Default Partitions


Partitions	Partition Name	Partition Size
First partition (on some systems)	Diagnostic or Service partition	Existing size on system.
Second partition (on some systems)	x86 boot partition	If you are performing an initial installation, this partition is not created. If you upgrade and your system does not have an existing x86 boot partition, this partition is not created. If you upgrade and your system has an x86 boot partition: If the partition is required to bootstrap from one boot device to another, the x86 boot partition is preserved on the system. If the partition is not required to boot additional boot devices, the x86 boot partition is removed. The contents of the partition are moved to the root partition.
Third partition	Solaris OS partition	Remaining space on the boot disk.

Default Boot-Disk Partition Layout Preserves the Service Partition

The Solaris installation program uses a default boot-disk partition layout to accommodate the diagnostic or Service partition. If your system currently includes a diagnostic or Service partition, the default boot-disk partition layout enables you to preserve this partition.

Note –

If you install the Solaris OS on an x86 based system that does not currently include a diagnostic or Service partition, the installation program does not create a new diagnostic or Service partition by default. If you want to create a diagnostic or Service partition on your system, see your hardware documentation.