You can set up a ZFS file system on any disk. However, a ZFS file system is not directly mapped to a disk or a disk slice. You must create a ZFS storage pool before creating a ZFS file system. For more information about ZFS storage pools, see Chapter 5, Managing Oracle Solaris ZFS Storage Pools in Managing ZFS File Systems in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
A root pool contains the root file system that is used to boot Oracle Solaris. A disk that is used in a non-root pool usually contains user or data files. You can attach additional disks to a root pool or a non-root pool for increased disk space.
To reduce system down time due to hardware failures, create a redundant root pool so that if a root pool disk becomes damaged, the system can still boot. For redundant root pool configurations, Oracle Solaris supports only a mirrored root pool. In a mirrored root pool, you can add, replace, or detach disks to manage a pool's size.
You can recover from a damaged root pool disk either by reinstalling the entire Oracle Solaris OS or by replacing the root pool disk and restoring your file systems from snapshots or from a backup medium.
You can replace a disk in a redundant pool provided that enough redundancy exists among the other devices. In a non-redundant pool, you can replace a disk only if all of the devices are in the ONLINE state.