What's New in Disk Management?

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

Identifying Devices by Physical Locations
Two-Terabyte Disk Support for Installing and Booting the Oracle 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

Identifying Devices by Physical Locations

Oracle Solaris 11: In this release, the /dev/chassis directory provides device names that includes physical locations. You can use this information to help you identify where devices are physically located if they need to be replaced or changed. You can use the following commands to display information by chassis, receptacle, and occupant values for the devices on your system:

diskinfo – Use this command to display general information about physical disk locations
format – Use this command to display physical disk location information for disks when reviewing partition tables or relabeling
prtconf -l – Use this command to display system configuration information that includes physical disk location information
zpool status -l – Use this command to display physical disk location information for pool devices

In addition, you can use the fmadm add-alias command to include a disk alias name that helps you identify the physical location of disks in your environment. For example:

# fmadm add-alias SUN-Storage-J4200.0912QAJ001 J4200@RACK10:U26-27
# fmadm add-alias SUN-Storage-J4200.0905QAJ00E J4200@RACK10:U24-25

These aliases can then be displayed with the preceding commands to display physical disk location information. For example:

$ diskinfo
D:devchassis-path                                      c:occupant-compdev
-----------------------------------------------------  ------------------
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__0/disk   c1t13d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__1/disk   c1t14d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__2/disk   c1t2d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__3/disk   c1t3d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__4/disk   c1t15d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__5/disk   c1t16d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__6/disk   c1t6d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__7/disk   c1t7d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__8/disk   c1t17d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__9/disk   c1t18d0
/dev/chassis/J4200@RACK10:U24-25/SCSI_Device__10/disk  c1t10d0

Determine where a particular disk is located:

% diskinfo -c c6t11d0
D:devchassis-path                                               c:occupant-compdev
--------------------------------------------------------------  ------------------
/dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400/SCSI_Device__11/disk             c6t11d0

In this example, the /dev/chassis disk name includes an alias name that helps you locate the device in your environment.

The following diskinfo example shows how to display a specific disk's physical location.

$ diskinfo -c c6t11d0 -o cp
c:occupant-compdev  p:occupant-paths                                     
------------------  -----------------------------------------------------
c6t11d0             /devices/pci@0,0/pci8086,3604@1/pci1000,3150@0/sd@b,0

If you want to identify how many disks of a certain type are included on the system, use diskinfo syntax similar to the following:

$ diskinfo -n SEAGATE ST31000N-SU0B-931.51GB -o Dcf
D:devchassis-path                                     t:occupant-type  c:occupant-compdev
----------------------------------------------------  ---------------  ------------------
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__0/disk   disk             c0t13d0           
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__1/disk   disk             c0t14d0           
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__2/disk   disk             c0t2d0            
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__3/disk   disk             c0t1d0            
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__4/disk   disk             c0t15d0           
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__5/disk   disk             c0t16d0           
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__6/disk   disk             c0t6d0            
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__7/disk   disk             c0t7d0            
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__8/disk   disk             c0t17d0           
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__9/disk   disk             c0t18d0           
/dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_24-25/SCSI_Device__10/disk  disk             c0t10d0

Note - The diskinfo command require that chassis support SES diagnostic page 0xa (Additional Element Status) and must set the Element Index Present (EIP) bit to 1. Enclosures that do not meet this criteria will not be fully enumerated, and thus, will not be properly represented.

The format command has been updated to provide physical device location information. For example:

# format
.
.
.
      18. c0t4d0 <SEAGATE-ST345056SSUN450G-081C-419.19GB>
          /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@9/LSILogic,sas@0/sd@4,0
          /dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_26-27/SCSI_Device__6/disk
      19. c0t27d0 <ATA-SEAGATE ST35000N-3AZQ-465.76GB>
          /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@9/LSILogic,sas@0/sd@1b,0
          /dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_26-27/SCSI_Device__7/disk
      20. c0t23d0 <ATA-SEAGATE ST31000N-SU0B-931.51GB>
          /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@9/LSILogic,sas@0/sd@17,0
          /dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_26-27/SCSI_Device__8/disk
      21. c0t24d0 <ATA-SEAGATE ST31000N-SU0B-931.51GB>
          /pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@9/LSILogic,sas@0/sd@18,0
          /dev/chassis/colab5@RACK10_26-27/SCSI_Device__9/disk

Use the prtconf -l to display the physical device location information. For example:

$ prtconf -l | more
System Configuration:  Oracle Corporation  sun4v
Memory size: 32640 Megabytes
System Peripherals (Software Nodes):

SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise-T5220 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__0/disk
.
.
.
pci, instance #15 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__0/disk
     LSILogic,sas, instance #1 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__0/disk
        smp, instance #0 (driver not attached)
        sd, instance #2 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__0/disk
        sd, instance #4 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__1/disk
        sd, instance #5 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__2/disk
        sd, instance #6 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__3/disk
        sd, instance #7 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__4/disk
        sd, instance #8 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__5/disk
        sd, instance #9 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__6/disk
        sd, instance #10 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__7/disk
        sd, instance #11 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__8/disk
        sd, instance #12 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__9/disk
        sd, instance #13 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__10/disk
        sd, instance #14 location: /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.0918QAKA24/SCSI_Device__11/disk

Use the zpool status -l option to display physical device location information. For example:

% zpool status -l export
  pool: export
 state: ONLINE
 scan: resilvered 379G in 8h31m with 0 errors on Thu Jan 27 23:10:20 2011
config:

        NAME                                                            STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        export                                                          ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-0                                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__2/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__3/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-1                                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__4/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__5/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-2                                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__6/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__7/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-3                                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__8/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__9/disk   ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-4                                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__10/disk  ONLINE       0     0     0
            /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__11/disk  ONLINE       0     0     0
        spares
          /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__0/disk     AVAIL   
          /dev/chassis/SUN-Storage-J4400.rack22/SCSI_Device__1/disk     AVAIL   

errors: No known data errors

Multiple Disk Sector Size Support

Oracle Solaris 11: Previous Solaris releases supported a disk sector size of 512 bytes. In this 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 Oracle Solaris release, the only supported file system that can be used on a large sector disk is a non-root ZFS file system. For more information about using a large sector disk as a COMSTAR target, see Chapter 14, Configuring Storage Devices With COMSTAR.

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

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

Oracle Solaris 11: 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 Oracle Solaris disk drivers and disk utilities have been updated to provide the following support:

Installing and booting the Oracle Solaris OS on a two-terabyte disk must be connected to a system with a minimum of 1.5 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: 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 Oracle Solaris iSCSI target to use a third-party iSNS server, see Chapter 14, Configuring Storage Devices With COMSTAR.
For information about configuring the Solaris iSCSI target with a Solaris iSNS server, see Chapter 15, Configuring and Managing the Oracle Solaris Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) and isnsadm(1M).

Solaris COMSTAR iSCSI Support

Oracle Solaris 11: 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 host into a SCSI target device that can be accessed over a storage network by initiator hosts

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

x86: Disk Management in the GRUB Boot Environment

Oracle Solaris 11: 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:

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 and Shutting Down Oracle Solaris on x86 Platforms.

This feature is not available on SPARC systems.

Support for SCSI Disks That are Larger Than 2 Terabytes

Oracle Solaris 11: 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.

Skip Navigation Links
Exit Print View
	Oracle Solaris Administration: Devices and File Systems Oracle Solaris 11 Information Library