Disk Slicing

[stevenriz]

Hello, can anyone explain the significance of the following disk slice specs? Would there be any reason to add the following slices to a disk that is NOT the root drive?? Three examples. (I condensed the display to make it readable.)

THIS ONE IS NOT A ROOT DISK. WHAT IS THE ROOT AND SWAP FOR??

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size
0 root wm 0 - 55 128.84MB
1 swap wu 56 - 111 128.84MB
2 backup wu 0 - 7505 16.86GB
3 unassigned wu 0 0
4 unassigned wu 0 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0
6 usr wm 112 - 7505 16.61GB
7 unassigned wm 0 0

-----------
WHY NOT JUST DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR STRAIGHT STORAGE? IF SO WHAT IS THE 2.30MB DOING??

Part Tag Cylinders Size
0 unassigned 0 0
1 unassigned 0 0
2 backup 0 - 7505 16.86GB
3 - 0 - 0 2.30MB
4 - 1 - 7505 16.86GB
5 unassigned 0 0
6 unassigned 0 0
7 unassigned 0 0

 

[daFranze]

tags are just used for the admin, for the system it has no meaning

second disk is/was used by veritas volume manager, it stores it's "private region" the info about it's configuration in slice3

Regards
-- Franz
Sorry I'm not a native spaeker, I'm from Munich, Germany - "Home of the Whopper", oh no, "Home of the Oktoberfest" ;-)
Solaris System Manager; I used to work for Sun Microsystems Support (EMEA) for 5 years

 

[stevenriz]

so can I do something like this??

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size
0 unassigned wm 0 0
1 unassigned wm 0 0
2 backup wu 0 - 7505 16.86GB
3 unassigned wu 0 0
4 unassigned wu 0 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0
6 usr wm 0 - 7503 16.86GB
7 unassigned wm 0 0

 

[daFranze]

yes, you can! you better use the whole disk (slice 0 to 7505) ;-)
The disk is currently not used!?


Regards
-- Franz
Sorry I'm not a native spaeker, I'm from Munich, Germany - "Home of the Whopper", oh no, "Home of the Oktoberfest" ;-)
Solaris System Manager; I used to work for Sun Microsystems Support (EMEA) for 5 years

 

[stevenriz]

I have been "finally" getting the hang of this part of admin-ing a solaris box and now that I understand it better, I feel much more comfortable. We have production boxes that I have set up like the very first scenerio where the first two slices are 128mb for something or other. I just copied configs from older boxes not really knowing what I know now. So back then, what you are saying is I could have left slice 1 and 2 empty for root and swap respectively??

I am really liking this stuff.... I'm like a sponge now! well. not really..... But thanks for the help!!!

Steve

 

[mikeclark]

A lot of disks (or RAIDS) will come with 2 small partitians and the rest of the space in one large partitian.
You repartitian it how you want it.

 

[daFranze]

Welcome, Steve; that's what Forums are for

Regards
-- Franz
Sorry I'm not a native spaeker, I'm from Munich, Germany - "Home of the Whopper", oh no, "Home of the Oktoberfest" ;-)
Solaris System Manager; I used to work for Sun Microsystems Support (EMEA) for 5 years

 

[stevenriz]

Cool, thanks. I am now doing something like this on all NON Veritas file systems... why waste the space??
Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size
0 unassigned wm 0 0
1 unassigned wu 0 0
2 backup wu 0 - 7505 16.86GB
3 unassigned wu 0 0
4 unassigned wu 0 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0
6 usr wm 0 - 7505 16.86GB
7 unassigned wm 0 0

 

[daFranze]

yep, that's fine! it is the Veritas Volume Manager, not the File System...?

Regards
-- Franz
Sorry I'm not a native spaeker, I'm from Munich, Germany - "Home of the Whopper", oh no, "Home of the Oktoberfest" ;-)
Solaris System Manager; I used to work for Sun Microsystems Support (EMEA) for 5 years

 

[stevenriz]

Yes, I meant I removed Veritas and am not using it anymore so it would be straight solaris file systems.

 

[daFranze]

yes, Veritas is the company; there are 2 Products in this context, the Volume Manager (it bundles diskspace just like you want, eg. RAID 0; another Product is DiskSuite) the File System sits on the diskspace (as you sayed, UFS or Solaris' Filesystem is an alternative product)

Regards
-- Franz
Sorry I'm not a native spaeker, I'm from Munich, Germany - "Home of the Whopper", oh no, "Home of the Oktoberfest" ;-)
Solaris System Manager; I used to work for Sun Microsystems Support (EMEA) for 5 years

 

[stevenriz]

Yes it was Volume Manager that we used. Now we have three licenses sitting doing nothing In our configuration, it didn't seem to buy us too much!
Thanks for all the help!!
Steve