Identifying Disks on a System

Use the format utility to discover the types of disks that are connected to a system. You can also use the format utility to verify that a disk is known to the system. For detailed information on using the format utility, see Chapter 13, The format Utility (Reference).

How to Identify the Disks on a System

1. Become an administrator.

   For more information, see How to Use Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Oracle Solaris 11.1 Administration: Security Services.

2. Identify the disks that are recognized on the system by using the format utility.

   # format

   The format utility displays a list of disks that it recognizes under AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS.

Example 9-1 Identifying the Disks on a System

The following example shows format command output.

# format
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c2t0d0 <SUN72G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 424>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@0,0
       1. c2t1d0 <SUN72G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 424>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@1,0
       2. c2t2d0 <SUN146G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 848>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@2,0
       3. c2t3d0 <SUN146G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 848>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@3,0
Specify disk (enter its number): 

The output associates a disk's physical and logical device name to the disk's marketing name, which appears in angle brackets <>. See the example below. This method is an easy way to identify which logical device names represent the disks that are connected to your system. For a description of logical and physical device names, see Device Naming Conventions.

The following example uses a wildcard to display the four disks that are connected to a controller 0:

# format /dev/rdsk/c0t6*
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. /dev/rdsk/c0t600A0B800022024E000054AC4970A629d0p0 <...>
          /scsi_vhci/disk@g600a0b800022024e000054ac4970a629
       1. /dev/rdsk/c0t600A0B800022024E000054AE4970A711d0p0 <...>
          /scsi_vhci/disk@g600a0b800022024e000054ae4970a711
       2. /dev/rdsk/c0t600A0B800022028A000050444970A834d0p0 <....>
          /scsi_vhci/disk@g600a0b800022028a000050444970a834
       3. /dev/rdsk/c0t600A0B800022028A000050454970A8EAd0p0 <...>
          /scsi_vhci/disk@g600a0b800022028a000050454970a8ea
Specify disk (enter its number): 

The following example shows how to identify the disk information:

# format
0. c2t0d0 <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@0,0

The output identifies that disk 0 (target 0) is connected to the second SCSI host adapter (scsi@2), which is connected to the second PCI interface (/pci@1c,600000/...). The output also associates both the physical and logical device name to the disk's marketing name, SUN36G.

Some disks do not have a marketing name. If the format output does not identify disks by their marketing names, then you can use the format utility's type and label features as described in the following steps to include the disk's marketing name.

The following steps must be done while the disk or system is inactive, which means booting from an installation DVD or the network, unless the disk is currently unused and it will not contain the Oracle Solaris release. In addition, the final step is to relabel the disk, which can remove any existing partition information or data.

# format
Searching for disks...done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c2t0d0 <SUN36G cyl 24620 alt 2 hd 27 sec 107>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@0,0
       1. c2t1d0 <SEAGATE-ST336607LSUN36G-0307-33.92GB>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@1,0
       2. c2t2d0 <SEAGATE-ST336607LSUN36G-0507-33.92GB>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@2,0
       3. c2t3d0 <drive type unknown>
          /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@3,0
Specify disk (enter its number): 3
selecting c2t3d0
[disk formatted]
format> type
AVAILABLE DRIVE TYPES:
        0. Auto configure
        1. other
Specify disk type (enter its number): 0
c2t3d0: configured with capacity of 33.92GB
<SEAGATE-ST336607LSUN36G-0507-33.92GB>
[disk formatted]
format> label
Ready to label disk, continue? yes
format> quit

If the format Utility Does Not Recognize a Disk ...

• Go to Chapter 10, Setting Up Disks (Tasks) or x86: Setting Up Disks for ZFS File Systems (Task Map).

• Go to How to Label a Disk.

• Connect the disk to the system by using your disk hardware documentation.