The Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide describes how to set up and maintain systems using Solaris Volume Manager to manage storage for high availability, flexibility, and reliability.This chapter serves as a high-level guide to find information for certain Solaris Volume Manager tasks, such as setting up storage capacity. This chapter does not address all the tasks that you will need to use Solaris Volume Manager. Instead, this chapter provides an overview of new features and an easy way to find procedures describing common tasks associated with Solaris Volume Manager concepts.This chapter includes the following roadmaps:Solaris Volume Manager Roadmap—What's New Solaris Volume Manager Roadmap—Storage Capacity Solaris Volume Manager Roadmap—Availability Solaris Volume Manager Roadmap—I/O Performance Solaris Volume Manager Roadmap—Administration Solaris Volume Manager Roadmap—Troubleshooting If you do not use Solaris Volume Manager correctly, you can destroy data. Solaris Volume Manager provides a powerful way to reliably manage your disks and data on them. However, you should always maintain backups of your data, particularly before you modify an active Solaris Volume Manager configuration. Task Description For Instructions Manage storage in which one or more components is greater than 1 TB Use physical logical unit numbers (LUNs) that are greater than 1 TB in size, or create logical volumes that are greater than 1 TB. Overview of Multi-Terabyte Support in Solaris Volume Manager Import a disk set from one system to another Use the metaimport command to import disk sets, even disk sets created on different systems. This command uses expanded device ID support to automatically track disk movement within named disk sets. Importing a Disk SetAsynchronous Shared Storage in Disk Sets Create and manage multi-owner disk sets Use the metaset M to administer multi-owner disk sets in a Sun Cluster environment. Tasks Associated With Multi-Owner Disk Sets Task Description For Instructions Set up storage Create storage that spans slices by creating a RAID-0 or a RAID-5 volume. The RAID-0 or RAID-5 volume can then be used for a file system or any application, such as a database, that accesses the raw device. How to Create a RAID-0 (Stripe) VolumeHow to Create a RAID-0 (Concatenation) VolumeHow to Create a RAID-1 Volume From Unused SlicesHow to Create a RAID-1 Volume From a File SystemHow to Create a RAID-5 Volume Expand an existing file system Increase the capacity of an existing file system by creating a RAID-0 (concatenation) volume, then adding additional slices to that volume. How to Expand Storage Capacity for Existing Data Expand an existing RAID-0 (concatenation or stripe) volume Expand an existing RAID-0 volume by concatenating additional slices to it. How to Expand an Existing RAID-0 Volume Expand a RAID-5 volume Expand the capacity of a RAID-5 volume by concatenating additional slices to it. How to Expand a RAID-5 Volume Increase the size of a UFS file system on an expanded volume Expand a file system by using the growfs command to expand the size of a UFS while it is mounted and without disrupting access to the data. How to Expand a File System Subdivide slices or logical volumes into smaller partitions, breaking the 8-slice hard partition limit Subdivide logical volumes or slices by using soft partitions. How to Create a Soft Partition Create a file system Create a file system on a RAID-0 (stripe or concatenation), RAID-1 (mirror), RAID-5, or on a soft partition. Chapter 18, Creating UFS, TMPFS, and LOFS File Systems (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems Task Description For Instructions Maximize data availability Use Solaris Volume Manager's mirroring feature to maintain multiple copies of your data. You can create a RAID-1 volume from unused slices in preparation for data, or you can mirror an existing file system, including root (/) and /usr. How to Create a RAID-1 Volume From Unused SlicesHow to Create a RAID-1 Volume From a File System Add data availability with minimum hardware cost Increase data availability with a minimum of hardware by using Solaris Volume Manager's RAID-5 volumes. How to Create a RAID-5 Volume Increase data availability for an existing RAID-1 or RAID-5 volume Increase data availability for a RAID-1 or a RAID-5 volume, by creating a hot spare pool then associating it with the submirrors of a RAID-1 volume, or a RAID-5 volume. Creating a Hot Spare Pool Associating a Hot Spare Pool With Volumes Task Description For Instructions Tune RAID-1 volume readanwrite policies Specify the read and write policies for a RAID-1 volume to improve I/O performance for a given configuration. RAID-1 Volume Read-and-Write Policies How to Change RAID-1 Volume Options Optimize device performance Create RAID-0 (stripe) volumes to optimize I/O performance of devices that make up the stripe. The interlace value can be optimized for random or sequential access. Creating RAID-0 (Stripe) Volumes Maintain device performance within a RAID-0 (stripe) Expand a stripe or concatenation that has run out of space by concatenating a new component to it. A concatenation of stripes is better for I/O performance than a concatenation of slices. Expanding Storage Capacity Task Description For Instructions Graphically administer your volume management configuration Use the Solaris Management Console graphical user interface (GUI) to administer your volume management configuration. Online help from within Solaris Volume Manager (Enhanced Storage) node of the Solaris Management Console application Graphically administer slices and file systems Use the Solaris Management Console GUI to administer your disks and file systems, performing such tasks as partitioning disks and constructing UFS file systems. Online help from within the Solaris Management Console application Optimize Solaris Volume Manager Solaris Volume Manager performance is dependent on a well-designed configuration. Once created, the configuration needs monitoring and tuning. Solaris Volume Manager Configuration GuidelinesWorking With Configuration Files Plan for future expansion Because file systems tend to run out of space, you can plan for future growth by putting a file system into a concatenation. Creating RAID-0 (Concatenation) Volumes Expanding Storage Capacity Task Description For Instructions Replace a failing slice If a disk fails, you must replace the slices used in your Solaris Volume Manager configuration. In the case of RAID-0 volume, you have to use a new slice, delete and re-create the volume, then restore data from a backup. Slices in RAID-1 and RAID-5 volumes can be replaced and resynchronized without loss of data. Responding to RAID-1 Volume Component FailuresHow to Replace a Component in a RAID-5 Volume Recover from boot problems Special problems can arise when booting the system, due to a hardware problem or operator error. How to Recover From Improper /etc/vfstab EntriesHow to Recover From Insufficient State Database ReplicasHow to Recover From a Boot Device Failure