Introduction to Storage Management

How you choose to manage your storage determines how you control the devices that store the
active
data on your system. To be useful, active data must be available and remain persistent even after
unexpected events, such as a hardware or software failure.
Storage Hardware
There are many different devices on which data can be stored. The selection of devices to best
meet
your storage needs depends primarily on three factors:
_ Performance
_ Availability
_ Cost
You can use Solaris Volume Manager to help manage the trade-offs in performance, availability,
and cost. You can often mitigate many of the trade-offs with Solaris Volume Manager.
Solaris Volume Manager works well with any supported storage on any system that runs the
Solaris operating system.
RAID Levels
RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or Independent) Disks. RAID refers
to a set of disks, called an array or a volume, that appears to the user as a single large disk drive.
Depending on the configuration, this array provides improved reliability, response time, or
storage capacity. Technically, there are six RAID levels, 0-5. Each level refers to a method of
distributing data while ensuring data redundancy. (RAID Level 0 does not provide data
redundancy, but is usually included as a RAID classification anyway. RAID Level 0 provides the
basis for the majority of RAID configurations in use.) Very few storage environments support
RAID Levels 2, 3, and 4, so those environments are not described here.
Solaris Volume Manager supports the following RAID levels:
RAID LEVEL 0 – Although stripes and concatenations do not provide redundancy, these
volumes are often referred to as RAID-0. Basically, data are spread across relatively small,
equally-sized fragments that are allocated alternately and evenly across multiple physical disks.
Any single drive failure can cause data loss. RAID-0 offers a high data transfer rate and high I/O
throughput, but suffers lower reliability and lower availability than a single disk.
RAID Level 1 – Mirroring uses equal amounts of disk capacity to store data and a copy (mirror)
of the data. Data is duplicated, or mirrored, over two or more physical disks. Data can be read
from both drives simultaneously, meaning that either drive can service any request, which
provides improved performance. If one physical disk fails, you can continue to use the mirror
with no loss in performance or loss of data.
Solaris Volume Manager supports both RAID-0+1 and (transparently) RAID-1+0 mirroring,
depending on the underlying volumes. See “Providing RAID-1+0 and RAID-0+1” on page 95
for details.
RAID Level 5 – RAID-5 uses striping to spread the data over the disks in an array. RAID-5 also
records parity information to provide some data redundancy.ARAID-5 volume can withstand
the failure of an underlying device without failing. If a RAID-5 volume is used in conjunction
with hot spares, the volume can withstand multiple failures without failing.ARAID-5 volume
will have a substantial performance degradation when operating with a failed device.
In the RAID-5 model, every device has one area that contains a parity stripe and other areas that
contain data. The parity is spread over all of the disks in the array, which reduces the write time.
Write time is reduced because writes do not have to wait until a dedicated parity disk can accept
the data.
Introduction to Solaris Volume Manager

Solaris Volume Manager is a software product that lets you manage large numbers of disks and
the data on those disks. Although there are many ways to use Solaris Volume Manager, most
tasks include the following:
_ Increasing storage capacity
_ Increasing data availability
_ Easing administration of large storage devices
In some instances, Solaris Volume Manager can also improve I/O performance

State Database and State Database Replicas

The state database is a database that stores information about the state of your Solaris Volume
Manager configuration. The state database records and tracks changes made to your onfiguration.
Solaris Volume Manager automatically updates the state database when a configuration or state
change occurs. Creating a new volume is an example of a configuration change.Asubmirror
failure is
an example of a state change.
The state database is actually a collection of multiple, replicated database copies. Each copy,
referred to as a state database replica, ensures that the data in the database is always valid.
Multiple copies of the state database protect against data loss from single points-of-failure. The
state database tracks the location and status of all known state database replicas. Solaris Volume
Manager cannot operate until you have created the state database and its state database
replicas.ASolaris Volume Manager configuration must have an operating state database.
When you set up your configuration, you can locate the state database replicas on either of the
following:
_ On dedicated slices
_ On slices that will later become part of volumes
Solaris Volume Manager recognizes when a slice contains a state database replica, and
automatically skips over the replica if the slice is used in a volume. The part of a slice reserved
for the state database replica should not be used for any other purpose.
You can keep more than one copy of a state database on one slice. However, you might make the
system more vulnerable to a single point-of-failure by doing so. The Solaris operating system
continues to function correctly if all state database replicas are deleted. However, the system
loses all Solaris Volume Manager configuration data if a reboot occurs with no existing state
database replicas on disk.
Hot Spare Pools
Ahot spare pool is a collection of slices (hot spares) reserved by Solaris Volume Manager to be
automatically substituted for failed components. These hot spares can be used in either a
submirror or RAID-5 volume. Hot spares provide increased data availability for RAID-1 and
RAID-5 volumes. You can create a hot spare pool with either the Enhanced Storage tool within
the Solaris Management Console or the command-line interface.
When component errors occur, Solaris Volume Manager checks for the first available hot spare
whose size is equal to or greater than the size of the failed component. If found, Solaris Volume
Manager automatically replaces the component and resynchronizes the data. If a slice of dequate
size is not found in the list of hot spares, the sub mirror or RAID-5 volume is considered to have
failed
Howto Create a RAID-0 (Stripe) Volume
To create a stripe volume, use one of the following methods:
Use the following form of the metainit command:
# metainit volume-name number-of-stripes
components-per-stripe
component-names
volume-name Specifies the name of the volume to create. For information on
naming volumes number-of-stripes Specifies the number of stripes to create.
components-per-stripe Specifies the number of components each stripe should have.
component-names Specifies the names of the components that are used. If more than one
component is used, separate each component with a space.
Creating a RAID–0 (Stripe) Volume of Three Slices
# metainit d20 1 3 c0t1d0s2 c0t2d0s2 c0t3d0s2
d20: Concat/Stripe is setup
This example shows the stripe, d20, consists of a single stripe (the number 1). The stripe is
composed of three slices (the number 3). Because no interlace value is specified, the stripe uses
the default of 16 Kbytes. The system confirms that the volume has been set up.

_ Howto Create a RAID-0 (Concatenation) Volume

_ Use the following form of the metainit command:
# metainit volume-name number-of-stripes
volume-name Specifies the name of the volume to create.
number-of-stripes Specifies the number of stripes to create.
components-per-concatenation Specifies the number of components each concatenation
should have.
component-names Specifies the names of the components that are used. If more
than one component is used, separate each component with a space.
# metainit d40 4 1 c0t1d0s2 1 c0t2d0s2 1 c0t2d0s3 1 c0t2d1s3
d40: Concat/Stripe is setup
This example shows the creation of a concatenation, d40. The concatenation consists of four
stripes (the number 4), each composed of a single slice (the number 1 in front of each slice). The
system verifies that the volume has been set up.
Howto Create a RAID-1 Volume
To create the mirror, use one of the following methods:
_ Use the following form of the metainit command to create a one-way mirror:
# metainit volume-name -m submirror-name
volume-name Specifies the name of the volume to create
-m Specifies to create a mirror
submirror-name Specifies the name of the component that will be the first submirror in the
mirror
To add the second submirror, use one of the following methods:
# metattach volume-name submirror-name
volume-name Specifies the name of the RAID-1 volume on which to add the submirror
submirror-name Specifies the name of the component that will be the second submirror
attached to the mirror
Creating a Two-Way Mirror
# metainit d51 1 1 c0t0d0s2
d51: Concat/Stripe is setup
# metainit d52 1 1 c1t0d0s2
d52: Concat/Stripe is setup
# metainit d50 -m d51
d50: Mirror is setup
# metattach d50 d52
d50: Submirror d52 is attached
This example shows you how to create the two-way mirror, d50. The metainit command creates
two submirrors (d51 and d52), which are RAID-0 volumes. The metainit -m command creates
the one-way mirror from the d51 RAID-0 volume. The metattach command attaches d52,
creating a two-way mirror and causing a resynchronization. Any data on the attached submirror
is overwritten by the other submirror during the resynchronization.

Howto Create a RAID-5 Volume

To create a RAID-5 volume, use one of the following methods:
_ Use the following form of the metainit command:
# metainit wolume-name -r component component component -i interlace-value
volume-name Specifies the name of the volume to create.
-r Specifies to create a RAID-5 volume.
component Specifies a slice or soft partition to include in the RAID-5 volume. At least 3
components are required.
Creating a RAID-5 Volume of Three Slices
In this example, the RAID-5 volume d45 is created with the -r option from 3 slices. Because no
interlace value is specified, d45 uses the default of 16 Kbytes. The system verifies that the
RAID-5
volume has been set up and begins initializing the volume.
You must wait for the initialization to finish before you can use the RAID-5 volume.
# metainit d45 -r c2t3d0s2 c3t0d0s2 c4t0d0s2
d45: RAID is setup

Creating a Hot Spare Pool

Become superuser.
To create a hot spare pool, use one of the following methods:
Use the following form of the metainit command:
# metainit hot-spare-pool-name ctds-for-slice

Creating a Hot Spare Pool

# metainit hsp001 c2t2d0s2 c3t2d0s2
hsp001: Hotspare pool is setup
In this example, the hot spare pool hsp001 contains two disks as the hot spares. The system
confirms that the hot spare pool has been set up.
. After you create the hot spare pool, you need to associate it with a submirror or RAID-5
 HowtoAddAdditional Slices to a Hot Spare Pool
.
To add a slice to an existing hot spare pool, use one of the following methods:
_ Use one of the following forms of the metahs command:
# metahs -a hot-spare-pool-name slice-to-add
# metahs -a -all hot-spare-pool-name slice-to-add
-a hot-spare-pool-name Specifies to add the slice to the specified hot spare pool.
-a all Specifies to add the slice to all hot spare pools.
slice-to-add Specifies the slice to add to the hot spare pool.
See the metahs(1M) man page for more information.

Adding a Hot Spare Slice to One Hot Spare Pool

In this example, the -a option adds the slice /dev/dsk/c3t0d0s2 to hot spare pool hsp001. The
system verifies that the slice has been added to the hot spare pool.
# metahs -a hsp001 /dev/dsk/c3t0d0s2
hsp001: Hotspare is added
Adding a Hot Spare Slice to All Hot Spare Pools
In this example, the -a option used with all adds the slice /dev/dsk/c3t0d0s2 to all hot spare pools
configured on the system. The system verifies that the slice has been added to all hot spare pools.
# metahs -a -all /dev/dsk/c3t0d0s2
hsp001: Hotspare is added
hsp002: Hotspare is added
hsp003: Hotspare is added