Solstice DiskSuite

Has anybody every used Solstice DiskSuite? I am having trouble setting it up. I installed it without a problem, but do I really have to blow away the drives on the D1000 just to create a metastate database?

If you have some space on the drive and a free partition, then no, you don't have to blow away the drives. Or, if you have free space / partitions on other drives (maybe a couple of internal drives) then you can use them for the metastate databases. You only need a small amount of space for the databases, it the partition that usually causes issues (lack thereof). You can grab space from the swap partition normally as long as you already have a free partition to use.

You might want to post what you are trying and the disks available (and the layout of those disks). Plus OS version...

Here is what I am trying to do:
I have a D1000 with 4 drives in it. I realize that I will eventually have to blow those 4 drives away (they are 4 mount points right now) in order to combine them.

Here is the output from df -k:
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 1636211 1241613 345512 79% /
/proc 0 0 0 0% /proc
fd 0 0 0 0% /dev/fd
mnttab 0 0 0 0% /etc/mnttab
swap 3754736 8 3754728 1% /var/run
/dev/dsk/c2t0d0s7 17481546 3388303 13918428 20% /u01
/dev/dsk/c2t1d0s7 17481546 6178091 11128640 36% /u02
/dev/dsk/c2t9d0s7 17481546 7198263 10108468 42% /u04
/dev/dsk/c2t8d0s7 17481546 10204129 7102602 59% /u03
swap 3755656 928 3754728 1% /tmp
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7 31282168 24095148 6874199 78% /export/home

My goal is to comine /u01->/u04 to one drive. Any ideas on the steps needed?

I just checked:
c0t1d0 has some partitions defined on it, but not mounted.

You might want to look a little closer at your drives - try the prtvtoc command and post the output for /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2, /dev/rdsk/c0t1d0s2, /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s2, /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s2, /dev/dsk/c2t9d0s2, and /dev/dsk/c2t8d0s2. This will let you see what may be available to allow you to put the metastate DB on.

Example:

# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2

  • /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2 partition map
    *
  • Dimensions:
  • 512 bytes/sector
    
  • 107 sectors/track
    
  •  27 tracks/cylinder
    
  • 2889 sectors/cylinder
  • 24622 cylinders
  • 24620 accessible cylinders
    *
  • Flags:
  • 1: unmountable
  • 10: read-only
    *
  •                      First     Sector    Last
    
  • Partition Tag Flags Sector Count Sector Mount Directory
    0 2 00 0 14774346 14774345
    1 3 01 14774346 11264211 26038556
    2 5 00 0 71127180 71127179
    3 7 00 26038557 11264211 37302767
    4 0 00 37302768 11264211 48566978
    5 0 00 48566979 11264211 59831189
    6 0 00 59831190 11264211 71095400
    7 0 00 71095401 31779 71127179
    #prtvtoc -f /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2
    FREE_START=0 FREE_SIZE=0 FREE_COUNT=0 FREE_PART=

Here goes:
# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s7

  • /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s7 partition map
    *
  • Dimensions:
  • 512 bytes/sector
    
  •  64 sectors/track
    
  •  64 tracks/cylinder
    
  • 4096 sectors/cylinder
  • 8673 cylinders
  • 8671 accessible cylinders
    *
  • Flags:
  • 1: unmountable
  • 10: read-only
    *
  • Unallocated space:
  •   First     Sector    Last
    
  •   Sector     Count    Sector 
    
  • 35508224 8192 35516415
    *
  •                      First     Sector    Last
    
  • Partition Tag Flags Sector Count Sector Mount Directory
    2 5 01 0 35516416 35516415
    7 0 00 0 35508224 35508223 /u01
    # prtvtoc -f /dev/dsk/c2t0d0s7
    FREE_START=35508224 FREE_SIZE=8192 FREE_COUNT=1 FREE_PART=013456

# prtvtoc /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s7

  • /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s7 partition map
    *
  • Dimensions:
  • 512 bytes/sector
    
  •  64 sectors/track
    
  •  64 tracks/cylinder
    
  • 4096 sectors/cylinder
  • 8673 cylinders
  • 8671 accessible cylinders
    *
  • Flags:
  • 1: unmountable
  • 10: read-only
    *
  • Unallocated space:
  •   First     Sector    Last
    
  •   Sector     Count    Sector 
    
  • 35508224 8192 35516415
    *
  •                      First     Sector    Last
    
  • Partition Tag Flags Sector Count Sector Mount Directory
    2 5 01 0 35516416 35516415
    7 0 01 0 35508224 35508223 /u02
    # prtvtoc -f /dev/dsk/c2t1d0s7
    FREE_START=35508224 FREE_SIZE=8192 FREE_COUNT=1 FREE_PART=013456

The other 2 disks are the same way.

As I also mentioned, there is a disk on the internal controller (c0t1d0) that has no mounted partitions at all. Its formatted, but that's it. I can change any of the partitions on this one and not affect any data.

You didn't put the info for c0t0d0s2 - if there is a free partition on it, that and c0t1d0 would be the best place for the metastate databases since they are internal and especially if you are going to mirror the OS drive (c0t0d0) to c0t1d0. You can cut swap partition (at the end) and move it to another free partition (you don't need much...it matters how big your drive is - on a 9GB drive 2 cylinders or 3.50MB is enough to hold the metastate databases.

Also, make sure that c0t1d0 isn't being used as raw partitions by Sybase/Oracle or some other DB product.

As far as one of your other statements: "goal is to combine /u01->/u04 to one drive" Are you looking at striping across the drives or just making one HUGE logical volume (striping=faster access versus one HUGE drive=space)?

(And if anyone else wants to jump in here...I'm sort of busy this week and may not get back to answering the OP)

What, exactly, do you want to do with these disks ? They had Oracle on them (or a previous, VERY ODD, sysadmin). Are you going to be running Oracle ?
Is this a work or personal setup ?

RTM is right, you need some space for the metadb(s). It looks like you have PLENTY of space on each disk on the D1000 (replication of the metdb is a necessity). It also appears as if the partitions on the disks in the D1000 are identical in size. This is necessary *IF* you are thinking of mirroring them with SDS.
You can, simply, create the metadb instances across the disks in the D1000 (assign the free space to any free partition number you choose), and add the partitions that exist into "SDS control".

Really, though, the intended use is IMPORTANT. Whether this is work or not is important (it affects available FUNDS).

I ask about work, because if this is a production environment, *and* you are going to keep running Oracle, you do not want to merge these partitions onto one "volume". You *may* even want to "split" the D1000 onto two separate SCSI controllers (this is where the FUNDS come in).

Let us know what you are going to use this for, and what environment it is in. ALSO show us, exactly, what is on the internal disks (prtvtoc).

We can then be more accurate in our recommendations.

Otherwise, it's all guesswork, and of no use to you.

I was thinking of combining the disks. This morning my boss asked me to use each disk seperately, do I don't have to worry about this anymore. Thank you all for your help.