Solaris LVM combine 2 disks?

[gallows]

I have a couple of 72gb disks left over and would like to combine them to make a 140gb drive. Is this possible with Solaris 9 LVM? I read how to mirror, stripe, raid 5 etc, but didn't see anything about just putting the two together.

These are internal disks on a V440.

Thanks,
Gallows

 

[aego]

I guess you already used the internal dual channel RAID controller for the mirroring of the OS-disks, so you cannot use that ( I hate to think you don't use it for that purpose, or you would like to stripe 2 OS-disks: I don't want to know how or why you would or could, actually ... )

When i think about it : it doesn't seem from your question you have any basic knowledge on RAID and/or Volume Management and the sorts - if you want to "put the two together" you are effectively making a stripe set of the two disks ...

You can find a lot of striping examples scattered around various independent websites or at Sun's Bigadmin site.

Read up a bit first, you don't want to make beginners' mistakes!



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I'm in yer face, even when you don't want me to be
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[gallows]

Actually, no I have not used the internal dual channel RAID controller. I wasn't aware there was one. It doesn't show up in the prtdiag. This system is a V440. My other systems are v280s, and v240s. I'll start looking around and see what I can find with regards to the internal RAID.

I mirrored the root disk, c0t0d0sx and c0t1d0sx by setting up the concat/stripe first on one side, rebooting, and attaching the other side (mirrors) after the reboot.

Thanks,
Gallows

 

[blainepruitt]

Gallows,

Not all Sun gear has hardware RAID controllers so you most likely have everything setup as best as possible with the options available to you. Please see the link below for instructions on setting up a RAID 0 container using SVM (Solaris Volume Manager)/Disk Suite.

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-4520/6manpieiu?a=view

HTH

 

[gallows]

Thanks blainepruitt. I have everything mirrored ok via the Solaris LVM.

What I found interesting is that Sun cannot tellme how to determine if my servers have hardware Raid. I opened a ticket for this purpose. I figured if the V440 had it, the V490 would too. But, no, that is not the case. When I asked Sun how they knew, they said because "their document" said so. I asked if I could get a copy, and of course no, it is an internal doc.

I still think there is a way to tell if a server supports internal hardware Raid.)

Gallows

 

[aego]

Gallows,

I'm a bit confused now. You were talking about a V440 first, and now you are talking about a V490.

There is a simple way to check if you know what to look for, but it is not generally available knowledge: that's why Sun will not provide (access to) internal docs when you don't have the proper support contracts If you use the server as a core production system it should be something to think about...

I therefore checked on one of our systems after my previous answer : i do not know if the HW-raid can be enabled/disabled through OBP, but I know the main reason it's there is because of root disk mirroring, it probably only supports that, and i also know you can create only one raid volume with the onboard controller.

The keyword in this case is the raidctl command. Check if it runs on your system and what output it gives. My recommendation : hardware raid ( mirroring especially ) is better than software raid in most if not all cases ...

___________
I'm in yer face, even when you don't want me to be
___________

 

[gallows]

aego - What started this was the fact I was not aware that the V440 had internal hardware Raid. We have V440s and V490s. I thought that if the V440 had it that the V490s might have it too. But, there is no way to check.

I verified this with Sun. Basically, if you want to find out if a server has it you can read the Marketing Material, or call Sun and open a ticket. This sounds nuts, but that is what I was told.

While the raidctl command is a step in the right direction, it is not 100% accurate. The reason being that that we have it on a 280R, which does not have internal hardare raid, but does have rm6 installed on it.)

 

[aego]

Ah, but that is another issue (for me, a blast from the past even): you would have rm6 on a 280R or E220/E420 if you for instance have or have had one or more A1000's or similar storage attached to it...

It is a pain, but you would have to add up all the information for instance 'Sun explorer' gives you, as your hardware could have changed from when it was installed first. You could also get some clues from iostat, cfgadm, prtdiag or from OBP ...

Still, I wonder why you would want to stripe your internal disks ?



___________
I'm in yer face, even when you don't want me to be
___________

 

[gallows]

Ha!! Yep with rm6 and the good ole A1000)

Actually, they changed their mind and now want the extra 2 disks mirrored. If I wait long enough, maybe they will change their mind again and donate them to the Salvation Army)