UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Can someone please help.

I have been given the opportunity to set up a storedge multipack (6 x 36 gig drives).

Equipment will attach to sun 420r with 2 x 36 gig drives. Solaris 8/ 4gig memory.

Total disk space = (72gig + 216gig(storedge))

I plan to install a fresh copy of solaris on internal disk 1 and then on the remaining disks install oracle and another software package. (never installed oracle but have found links in forum to help - thanks)

The software to be installed requires the following partitions:

root 4 GB
swap 12GB
oraclesw 4GB
db01 8GB
db02 16 GB
db03 90 GB
db04 70 GB

Reading the forums I would guess that veritas would be reccomended as a volume manager to administer the disks but I don't have a copy.


Is it possible to have the partitions above without using veritas(don't have the $ for ANY additional software) and what would be the direction to steer in (If any)?

Hi!

If would recommend installing oracle binaries on one slice and the datbase on another. You will win no preformance on splitting the disks cause the diskpack only have one scsi channel .

So i would make something like this

Internal disks : (2x36)

/ - 6 gb raid 1
/var - 4 gb raid 1
swap (same as amount of ram )
/oraclebin (or whatever you wanna call it) 20 gb

Diskpack
/oradata (6x36gb) raid 1+0

You can use the Disksuite software from Sun its free and can make raids, mirrors etc just like veritas volume manager (I dont remmember if its included in solaris8 or if you have to install it form the software cd 2/2). Use that! Check docs.sun.com for information on how to use the disksuite software.

Just my toughts

/Peter

....I installed Disksuite (on 2nd CD with Solaris 8 package) - just have to figure out how to use it.

I installed solaris 8 but did not install oracle yet. Should I install oracle on the same disk as Solaris(boot disk) - do I have to? (Should I wait until RAID is set up before installing Oracle?)

As you can see I have to make 1 partition 90 GB and 70GB...I guess Disksuite will allow me to see the 7 other disks as 1 volume? Or just those disks that I assign to it?

Hello!
I would keep the oracle binaries on the root disk but its just a matter of taste! Do as you like. If you have 36 gb root disks it seems like a waste of space to me to just use them for the OS.

I would recommend setting up the raid before installing oracle. There is always the possibility of doing something wrong and wecking the disk config considering you are pretty new to the Solaris disksuite. (you will understand once you give it a try! Keep focused! )

Yes you can make on big stripe of all the disks but consider the fact that if one disk breaks the volume will break! So i would recommend making a mirror of the 2 internal disks and then 2stripes with 3disk in each and then mirror them.( that will give you 3x36gb of space to play with) if you are gonna use it in a production environment. If its just for a test do as you want.

What i recommend:
Mirror (raid 1) of internal disks
/ 7gb
/var 3gb
swap 1gb
/orabin 20gb

raid 1+0 of 6x36gb diskpack
/oradata 108 gb

Disksuite works with slices so you can have like c0t1d0s2 c0t2d0s2 and c0t3d0s3 as one disk and use c0t1d0s0 for something else.. (Read the docs on sunsolve)

Cheers
/peter

first of all.... this is a question for our new solaris forum (thx to neo) ;-)

i would prefer to mirror the boot disks ... small tip: set your swap to more then 4 GB (perhaps 6 or more disk has enough space) you should survive a complete dump of virtual an physical swap.....! (don't forget to set your new dumpdevice to the new metadevices!) with the diskpack i would create an raid 5... don't forget to let a slice free for your replicas (in my example s3)...
0 / 2GB
1 swap 6GB
3 <nomountpoint> 50MB
4 /usr 4GB
5 /var 4GB
6 /opt/ 4GB
7 /opt/orabin 16GB

/oradata raid5

greetings Preßy

Actually....as listed in the first post....the software I am installing requires a 12GB swap partition. I will give it a try....lots of reading tonight.....

Thanks for the direction and help. I will let you know how I make out.

Thanks again.