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solaris disk nomenclature

Solaris system disk nomenclature:

healthy disk indicated by ^++

There are two additional commands to discover if SAN, NAS disks are bad on your Storage system. "iostat -En" , "zpool status", "dmesg | grep -i error"

root@frodo:~$ hd -c -d -s

 

-----------------------------SunFire -------Rear-----------------
 3:    7:   11:   15:   19:   23:   27:   31:   35:   39:   43:   47:
c1t3  c1t7  c2t3  c2t7  c3t3  c3t7  c4t3  c4t7  c5t3  c5t7  c6t3  c6t7
^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++
 2:    6:   10:   14:   18:   22:   26:   30:   34:   38:   42:   46:
c1t2  c1t6  c2t2  c2t6  c3t2  c3t6  c4t2  c4t6  c5t2  c5t6  c6t2  c6t6
^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++
 1:    5:    9:   13:   17:   21:   25:   29:   33:   37:   41:   45:
c1t1  c1t5  c2t1  c2t5  c3t1  c3t5  c4t1  c4t5  c5t1  c5t5  c6t1  c6t5
^b+   ^++   ^b+   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++
 0:    4:    8:   12:   16:   20:   24:   28:   32:   36:   40:   44:
c1t0  c1t4  c2t0  c2t4  c3t0  c3t4  c4t0  c4t4  c5t0  c5t4  c6t0  c6t4
^b+   ^++   ^b+   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++
-------*---------*-----------SunFire ---*---Front-----*-------*---
Broken Disk indicated by: ^--
-----------------------------SunFire -------Rear-----------------
 3:    7:   11:   15:   19:   23:   27:   31:   35:   39:   43:   47:
c1t3  c1t7  c2t3  c2t7  c3t3  c3t7  c4t3  c4t7  c5t3  c5t7  c6t3  c6t7
^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++
 2:    6:   10:   14:   18:   22:   26:   30:   34:   38:   42:   46:
c1t2  c1t6  c2t2  c2t6  c3t2  c3t6  c4t2  c4t6  c5t2  c5t6  c6t2  c6t6
^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^--   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^--
 1:    5:    9:   13:   17:   21:   25:   29:   33:   37:   41:   45:
c1t1  c1t5  c2t1  c2t5  c3t1  c3t5  c4t1  c4t5  c5t1  c5t5  c6t1  c6t5
^b+   ^++   ^b+   ^++   ^--   ^++   ^--   ^++   ^++   ^--   ^++   ^++
 0:    4:    8:   12:   16:   20:   24:   28:   32:   36:   40:   44:
c1t0  c1t4  c2t0  c2t4  c3t0  c3t4  c4t0  c4t4  c5t0  c5t4  c6t0  c6t4
^b+   ^++   ^b+   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++   ^++
-------*---------*-----------SunFire ---*---Front-----*-------*---

Solaris disk naming scheme is somewhat confusing until when one has cracked open a SUN SunFire server and seeing so many disks,  one shall at that very instance realize the reason  of solaris's madness with its logical disk nomenclature.

First of all, a DVD/CD disk loaded on the solaris system is identified as /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 aka cotodoso.

The reason why this was a logical method was that, on these large scale SUN systems, there were actually disk controllers available to control hard disks. In the above example, we could see that there were controllers.  one controller controlling each  two columns of drives.    'c' is translate into controller, so if there were a drive failed in either of the first two column. It would be located in the first controller. The next character is 't'. no clue what it means but in my own term, it is the value for type of disk or the range of disks in a given controller. sadly, 't' could not be translate into the row value as we can see it is listed as the number of disks in a controller.  Starting with 0 on the front panel and count up towards the rear. Kind of like the first slot in an array in terms of CS, all things in CS starts with 0.  next, we have 'd', it is the disk number. 't' and 'd' may have similar meaning.

Finally, 's' is the slice or the partition. So... if we had something categorized as such c6t3d3s5. This would be partition 5 disk 3 row 3 in controller 6.  Solaris does care for the exact location of disk in any multi-disk system. This was an straight forward approach in location disk for all large scale systems.  if we were to translate *c6t3d3s5 into linux jargon, we believed that it might be *sdd5, this means that your third {ssd||spinningDisk} connected to your mobo via sata cable partition 5 might be having an issue.  Overall, linux does provide an abstracted layer approach in disk orientation unlike Solaris, where it provided more of a logical approach in identifying each individual disk based on controller location.

* Correction, we had it sdc5, but disk in solaris starts with 0 so its actually the fourth disk in linux jargon. Linux's disk is based on solely with SATA cable orientations and depending on the number of SATA ports available on the MOBO. Starting with sda, which is the first SATA cable connected to SATA0 on MOBO unless this is a DVD/CD rom drive otherwise, we are claiming it to be HD. sda = firstHD, sdb = secondHD, sdc=thirdHD, sdd = fourthHD. A normal Desktop MOBOs might be able to insert 4 HDs. A super charge MOBO might be able to insert 8 HDs or more. the number after the sda is the partition value. For example sda3. This means the first HD or first SATA cable connected to the MOBO where partition 3 on this disk call sda. This is one perspective we have based on each individual controller controlling the 8 HDs. If you were to look at it from a large picture, then this drive is a part of the entire set of disks. In a second linux jargon, it might actually be sdar5 if you were to count from bottom left hand corner to this particular drive location. surely, its one confusing mess. Depending on how you look at it, one controller (tree) or the entire shebang (forest), its either drive 'sdd' or drive 'sdar'. we kind of enjoy looking at it at a tree perspective, so sdd will be.

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