What's New in Disk Management?

This section describes new disk management features in the Solaris release.

• Two-Terabyte Disk Support for Installing and Booting the Solaris OS

• iSNS Support in the Solaris iSCSI Target and Initiator

• Solaris COMSTAR iSCSI Support

• x86: Disk Management in the GRUB Boot Environment

• Support for SCSI Disks That are Larger Than 2 Terabytes

Multiple Disk Sector Size Support

Oracle Solaris 11 Express: Previous Solaris releases supported a disk sector size of 512 MB. In this Solaris release, disks with sector sizes of 512 bytes, 1024 bytes, 2048 bytes, or 4096 bytes are supported. Large sector disks provide greater disk capacity, higher reliability, and greater efficiency for data transfer and faster drive maintenance.

In this Solaris release, the only product that is able to use a large sector disk is COMSTAR. The only supported file system in this configuration is a non-root ZFS file system. For more information about using a large sector disk as a COMSTAR target, see this site:

http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Project+comstar/WebHome

In the ability to boot and install from a large sector disk is not currently supported.

Information about using large sector disks will be provided in a future Solaris release as large sector disks are made available.

Two-Terabyte Disk Support for Installing and Booting the Solaris OS

Oracle Solaris 11 Express: In previous Solaris releases, you could not install and boot the Solaris OS from a disk that was greater than 1 TB in size. In this Solaris release, you can install and boot the Solaris OS from a disk that is up to 2 TB in size. In previous releases, you also had to use an EFI label for a disk that is larger than 1 TB. In this release, you can use the VTOC label on any size disk, but the addressable space by the VTOC is limited to 2 TB.

The Solaris disk drivers and disk utilities have been updated to provide the following support:

• Installing and booting the Solaris OS on a two-terabyte disk must be connected to a system that runs a 64-bit kernel, with a minimum of 1 GB of memory.

• You can use the format -e utility to label a disk of any size with a VTOC label, but the addressable space is limited to 2 TB.

• The default label that is used by the format utility and the installation software for a disk that is less than 2 TB in size is a VTOC label.

• You can use the fdisk utility on a disk that is greater than 1 TB on x86 systems. Support is added for up to 2-TB partitions in the MBR for non-EFI partition types. This support means that Solaris partitions can go up to 2 TB. Other non-EFI partitions may be subject to a limit depending on partition type.

  When the fdisk utility is run on a disk that is greater than 2 TB in size, a warning message is displayed to indicate that you cannot create a non-EFI partition that is greater than 2 TB.

Keep in mind that you cannot move a disk over 1 TB with a legacy MBR or a legacy VTOC to a previous Solaris release. EFI labeled disks continue to work as in previous Solaris releases.

For more information about the EFI label changes in this release, see EFI Disk Label.

iSNS Support in the Solaris iSCSI Target and Initiator

Oracle Solaris 11 Express: This Solaris release provides support for the Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) protocol in the Solaris iSCSI target and initiator software. The iSNS protocol allows for the automated discovery, management, and configuration of iSCSI devices on a TCP/IP network.

See the following resources for step-by-step instructions:

• For information about configuring the Solaris iSCSI target to use a third-party iSNS server, see Chapter 14, Configuring iSCSI Storage Devices With COMSTAR.

• For information about configuring the Solaris iSCSI target with a Solaris iSNS server, see Chapter 15, Configuring and Managing the Solaris Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) and isnsadm(1M).

Solaris COMSTAR iSCSI Support

Oracle Solaris 11 Express: iSCSI is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for linking data storage subsystems. By carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, the iSCSI protocol enables you to mount disk devices, from across the network, onto your local system. On your local system, you can use the devices like block devices.

Common Multiprotocol SCSI TARget, or COMSTAR, a software framework enables you to convert any Oracle Solaris 11 Express host into a SCSI target device that can be accessed over a storage network by initiator hosts

For more information, see Chapter 14, Configuring iSCSI Storage Devices With COMSTAR.

x86: Disk Management in the GRUB Boot Environment

Oracle Solaris 11 Express: The GRUB boot menu has replaced the previous method for booting an x86 system. In the area of disk management, you use the GRUB interface when booting from an alternative device to replace a system disk or when installing the bootblocks.

The GRUB boot environment provides the following features:

• Solaris failsafe boot – A Solaris failsafe boot option that boots into the miniroot so you can recover from a problem that is preventing the system from booting without having to boot from an alternative device. Use the arrow keys to select the following option from the GRUB boot menu and then press return:

  Solaris failsafe

  You'll need to reboot the system after using the Solaris failsafe boot option.

• Network boot – Boot from the network by pressing the F12 key during the BIOS configuration phase.

• Single-user boot – Boot to single-user mode by selecting this option from the Solaris failsafe boot menu:

  kernel /platform/i86pc/multiboot

  Then, use the e (edit) option to add the -s single-user option. For example:

  kernel /platform/i86pc/multiboot -s

  Press return and then press the b key to boot the system. Press control-D to boot the system back to multiuser mode.

In the GRUB environment, you cannot use the fmthard command to install the boot blocks automatically when run on an x86 system. You must install the boot blocks separately.

For detailed feature information and instructions on using the new GRUB based booting on x86 systems, see Booting an x86 Based System (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

For instructions for managing disks in the GRUB boot environment, see the following references:

• x86: How to Install a Boot Block on a System Disk

• x86: How to Connect a System Disk

This feature is not available on SPARC systems.

Support for SCSI Disks That are Larger Than 2 Terabytes

Oracle Solaris 11 Express: The SCSI driver, ssd or sd, supports 2 terabytes and greater. The SCSI driver, ssd or sd, is limited to 2 TB in previous Solaris releases.

The format utility can be used to label, configure, and partition these larger disks. For information about using the EFI disk label on large disks and restrictions with the fdisk utility, see Restrictions of the EFI Disk Label.