[SunHELP] Re: Q's about RAID on an E450.

[Dave Gargan]

Solaris 8 does come with DiskSuite, but you have to look for it and
install it separately.  The new version has alot of advanced options,
such as soft-partitioning (finally).  It does come with a gui, but I
prefer the command line utilities, since they are more powerful.  To
check if the machine has DiskSuite installed, look for the SUNWmd
packages.

pkginfo | grep -i disksuite

The packages that are required are something like SUNWmdr, SUNWmdu,
SUNWmdx, SUNWmdg etc...  I'm not close to a disksuited machine right now
so those might be off a little.  It may be installed, but not in use
also.  To check if it's being used, have a look at the mount points in
your vfstab.  If there is an md driver in the paths to the disks, then
disksuite is being used.

I heard that there was some hardware raid cards available from third
parties for the 450, and a rumor that Sun eventually made some available
directly from Sun, but I'm not sure how you'd check short of opening the
case to see what cards are inside.

Dave


> Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:08:51 -0400
> To: sunhelp at sunhelp.org
> From: Steve Fulton <steve at esoteric.ca>
> Subject: [SunHELP] Q's about RAID on an E450.
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm working on turning an unused E450 running Solaris 8 into a webserver, 
> and my colleagues insist the machine has RAID.  I'm familiar with hardware 
> and software RAID on other *nix's on the Intel platform, but not with Sun 
> machines, and my research has led me to a few questions:
> 
> 1.  I've learned about the DiskSuite package that allows configuring of 
> RAID (software?).  Is this the only RAID available to me?  Or is there a 
> hardware interface I must configure prior to the OS booting (ie. on typical 
> Intel based hardware RAID cards)?
> 
> 2.  If DiskSuite is the solution, does it require X-Windows or CDE?  Or can 
> I run it from the command line?  (I'm not at the site right now .. back 
> early tomorrow morning).
> 
> 3.  Again, if DiskSuite ends up being used, are there any security issues 
> you're aware of (this will be a webserver, afterall)?
> 
> Thanks for your time!
> 
> -- Steve Fulton
> 
> --__--__--