Tips and Tricks for Managing Disks

Use the following tips to help you manage disks more efficiently.

Debugging format Sessions

Invoke the format -M command to enable extended and diagnostic messages for ATA and SCSI devices.

Example 11-8 Debugging format Sessions

In this example, the series of numbers under Inquiry represent the hexadecimal value of the inquiry data that is displayed to the right of the numbers.

# format -M
Searching for disks...done
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
  0. c0t1d0 <SUN1.05 cyl 2036 alt 2 hd 14 sec 72>
     /iommu@f,e0000000/sbus@f,e0001000/espdma@f,400000/esp@f,800000/sd@1,0
  1. c0t3d0 <SUN1.05 cyl 2036 alt 2 hd 14 sec 72>
     /iommu@f,e0000000/sbus@f,e0001000/espdma@f,400000/esp@f,800000/sd@3,0
 
Specify disk (enter its number): 0
selecting c0t3d0
[disk formatted]
format> inquiry
Inquiry:
00 00 02 02 8f 00 00 12 53 45 41 47 41 54 45 20     ........NAME....
53 54 31 31 32 30 30 4e 20 53 55 4e 31 2e 30 35     ST11200N SUN1.05
38 33 35 38 30 30 30 33 30 32 30 39 00 00 00 00     835800030209....
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00     ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00     ................
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00     ................
00 43 6f 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 20 28 63 29 20 31     .Copyright (c) 1
39 39 32 20 53 65 61 67 61 74 65 20 41 6c 6c 20     992 NAME    All 
72 69 67 68 74 73 20 72 65 73 65 72 76 65 64 20     rights reserved 
30 30 30                                            000
Vendor:   name 
Product:  ST11200N SUN1.05
Revision: 8358
format> 

Labeling Multiple Disks by Using the prtvtoc and fmthard Commands

Use the prtvtoc and fmthard commands to label multiple disks with the same disk geometry.

Use the following for loop in a script to copy a disk label from one disk and replicate it on multiple disks.

# for i in x y z
> do
> prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/cwtxdysz | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/cwt${i}d0s2
> done

Example 11-9 Labeling Multiple Disks

In this example, the disk label from c2t0d0s0 is copied to four other disks.

# for i in 1 2 3 5
> do
> prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0s0 | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/c2t${i}d0s2
> done
fmthard:  New volume table of contents now in place.
fmthard:  New volume table of contents now in place.
fmthard:  New volume table of contents now in place.
fmthard:  New volume table of contents now in place.
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