Hi,
Here's a very long overdue summary...
========= Original question ===========
What is the maximum number of UFS partitions that I can specify for a disk
via the disktab file? The man page for disktab lists options for
partitions a-h, but I would like to go up to 11 or 12 partitions in
addition to any "sacred" ones such as partition c (and h?). This is for a
73GB disk which I am using to consolidate a number of filesystems from
separate, smaller disks. Maybe this isn't the best way to accomplish this,
but I don't want to deviate too far from the way we've done things in the
past unless I really should or unless I really have no other choice. If I
can't do this with UFS, I guess going to AdvFS wouldn't be too traumatic if
that is appropriate in this case. We are running 4.0D on this machine but
will upgrade soon, so I'd like a solution that is fairly independent of
Tru64 version. Will summarize.
================================
I received 19 replies:
William_Bochnik_at_acml.com
"O'Brien, Pat" <pobrien_at_mitidata.com>
Paul LaMadeleine <plamadeleine_at_lightbridge.com>
<jason_neil_at_yahoo.com>
Greg Freemyer <freemyer_at_NorcrossGroup.com>
Ram Rao <Ram.Rao_at_compaq.com>
John Francini <francini_at_zk3.dec.com>
system administration account <sysadmin_at_astro.su.se>
"Davis, Alan" <Davis_at_tessco.com>
smt_at_corning.com
Dirk Hufnagel <hufnagel_at_mps.ohio-state.edu>
"Thomas M. Payerle" <payerle_at_physics.umd.edu>
David Massaro - ITEC systems group <MASSARDA_at_mail.suny.edu>
"Karen R. McArthur" <kmcarthu_at_bates.edu>
"Dr. Thomas.Blinn_at_Compaq.com" <tpb_at_doctor.zk3.dec.com>
stiffler durden <stifflerdurden_at_yahoo.com>
"ayman" <arayyan_at_dana.com.jo>
Udo de Boer <Udo.de.boer_at_ubero.nl>
alan_at_nabeth.cxo.cpqcorp.net
Thanks to EVERYONE who replied. Excerpts from various replies follow:
a-h is your limit. If you want more, you need LSM. If you want
to map to filesystems, advfs would work as well (make separate
filesets for each other filesystem). Why do you need to do this
this way? You should just be able to make the directory tree and
copy the files in - the number of partitions and / or filesets is
irrelevant.
In my many years with tru64, I have never seen more than the standard. I
suppose you couold create a special disktab stanza to perform your desired
task. Personally, I would use lsm to chuck up your drive. And then if you
have 2, you could then also mirror them for redundancy and increased speed
on reads. I use this method to create 100 & 200 gb hsg disk objects, and
then use lsm to chunkem up into different slices for different task, and
perfom mirroring when required.
Your best bet is to simply create an AdvFS domain in the "c"
partition and define as many filesets as there were partitions on the
old disks to consolidate. In this scenario, the free space on the
disk becomes a shared pool that can accomodate the growth of _any_ of
the partitions. In addition, should you needs outgrow that single disk you
can add
another drive, and use the AdvFS Advanced Utilities (requires
separate license) to add a volume to your existing AdvFS domain. All
the filesets in the domain would then have access to the additional
space.
AdvFS should be able to handle more filesets (the limit is some 3-figure
number, I believe). With the extra advantage that you can easily reallocate
disk space between them. Whenever I've had to consolidate data from
smaller disks onto UFS (no AdvFS on Solaris, sorry) I've simply restored
them in separate subdirectories of
a large partition, then used the automounter to make them appear in the
same locations as the originals.
You /really/ want to convert to AdvFS. If you have to shut the system down
without syncing or if it crashes 73gb of UFS filesystems will take a /long/
time to fsck. You can have many, many filesets per AdvFS domain, giving you
all the mountable "partitions" that you would need.
Don't put the whole disk in one domain, carve it up into reasonable
partitions and put each partition in it's own domain. Then create the
filesets within each domain for your mountable filesystems. This makes
backing up and restoring parts of the system much easier and limits damage
if a domain gets corrupted.
Received on Mon Dec 17 2001 - 21:35:50 NZDT