Memory Upgrade Question - Solaris 10 x86 2

[artfulbodger]

I am want to upgrade a production box (generic) running Solaris 10 from 1GB to 2GB RAM. Someone told me once that I would have to re-install because the OS wouldn't be aware of the new memory. This doesn't sound right.

But...since I am still learning this OS, I just want to put the question out there and see if there is anything I need to do with the OS after I install the new RAM.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Mike042]

I don't know for absolute certainty (because I've not done it) but I'm fairly sure, especially for SPARC, that when the OS boots it checks how much memory is present and sets up any memory-dependant parameters, etc then. I might be tempted to increase the swapspace, but that would depend on how difficult it was to achieve. You said it was a 'production box', is there a possibility of you trying it on a 'test box' first?

I hope that helps.

Mike

 

[artfulbodger]

Thanks for the reply...

I did try it out - on a IBM T30 laptop. I went from 256MB to 512MB and there were no problems that I could see. So, adding the memory didn't do anything detrimental.

However, after I was told that the OS wouldn't be aware of the new memory, I didn't know how to tell if the system was utilizing it or not or, (like you said) if swap space (or anything else for that matter) would have to be modified.

Thus far, I know I cannot kill it....

 

[elgrandeperro]

In the very early days, one needed to set params for Solaris to configure memory, this has not been true since before Solaris 2.

Read this for swap stuff:

http://blogs.sun.com/jimlaurent/entry/solaris_faq_myths_and_facts

Since you can add swap on the Filesystem, there isn't much motivation to increase it.

 

[SamBones]

Just shut it down cleanly, install the memory, then fire it back up. Solaris 10 will both see and use the new memory. Nothing else to do.

The only thing you may have to change might be any memory parameters you may have changed in [tt]/etc/system[/tt]. Most of the time this is done for Oracle installations, but most of those Oracle settings have become obsolete with Solaris 10 because it handles memory so much better.

Doing radical things to add memory was true 15 to 20 years ago, but not now. Go for it!

 

[artfulbodger]

Sam & Perro....

Thanks and a couple of stars your way. No wonder I couldn't find stuff on Google - the info was that old!

Memory is going in tonight.

 

[Mike042]

I didn't know how to tell if the system was utilizing it or not or.

On SPARC, to get Memory Size, we use:
prtconf | grep Memory


I hope that helps.

Mike

 

[SamBones]

This will show you the total memory, and which memory chips it sees...

/usr/platform/`uname -i`/sbin/prtdiag -v