Using Large Disks under Solaris

Greetings all. Perhaps someone (besides Obnoxo) can help me with this? It would be greatly appreciated. I have observed that Informix has a chunk size limitation of around 2.01GB. In addition, on Solaris, we are able to define no more than 7 (and typically 6) partitions on a given hard disk. Although I am very aware of how to use 'onspaces' to combine multiple chunks into a single dataspace, it still appears that Informix under Solaris can support a maximum physical disk size of around (6 * 2.01 GB), which comes out to [I goed to colledge] around 12GB, assuming I *want* to make all the chunks the maximum of 2GB, which I often don't. We recently purchased a Sun E450, which we ordered with 18GB disks. In practive, I've been able to use only around 60-70% of the disk space purchased, and as disk densities increase, the problem will only worsen. Can someone pleeeez tell me that I'm wrong about this limit? ;-) Rich -- Richard C. Auslander Database Manager AirFlash, Inc. 1733 Woodside Rd., Suite #110 Redwood City, CA 94061 (650) 556-7928 www.airflash.com

Richard Auslander wrote: > > Greetings all. Perhaps someone (besides Obnoxo) can help me with this? > It would be greatly appreciated. > > I have observed that Informix has a chunk size limitation of around > 2.01GB. In addition, on Solaris, we are able to define no more than 7 Actually 2097150KB which is 2GB-2K (where GB = (1024)^3, but essentially true. > (and typically 6) partitions on a given hard disk. Although I am very Also true, don't forget to skip the VTOC (~4K) when defining partitions for Informix to use RAW! > aware of how to use 'onspaces' to combine multiple chunks into a single > dataspace, it still appears that Informix under Solaris can support a > maximum physical disk size of around (6 * 2.01 GB), which comes out to > [I goed to colledge] around 12GB, assuming I *want* to make all the > chunks the maximum of 2GB, which I often don't. We recently purchased a > Sun E450, which we ordered with 18GB disks. In practive, I've been able > to use only around 60-70% of the disk space purchased, and as disk > densities increase, the problem will only worsen. > > Can someone pleeeez tell me that I'm wrong about this limit? ;-) You are not wrong, however, it ain't (see I colledge boy two!) as bad as it seems. You CAN bypass the Solaris partition limitation by using a volume manager, like Veritas VM or the Sun packaged VM (which is just Veritas but usually a few versions behind). This will allow you to create as many partitions on a physical drive as you need or combine physical drives into arrays and partition the arrays into dozens of logical drives. Compared to an E450 the cost is minimal. Art S. Kagel

I wanted to thank everyone for their responses. May I ask a follow up question? We are on a very tight startup budget, and would prefer to be able to use the Volume Manager (DiskSuite) included with Solaris. However, our System Administrator has suggested that DiskSuite lacks the needed functionality; i.e., it will not permit us to partition a Solaris hard disk into more than seven or eight partitions. If anyone out there has used it in this manner, and can point me towards a particular function within this utility, I would be most appreciative. Thanks again to all in advance ... Rich Richard Auslander wrote: > Greetings all. Perhaps someone (besides Obnoxo) can help me with this? > It would be greatly appreciated. > > I have observed that Informix has a chunk size limitation of around > 2.01GB. In addition, on Solaris, we are able to define no more than 7 > (and typically 6) partitions on a given hard disk. Although I am very > aware of how to use 'onspaces' to combine multiple chunks into a single > dataspace, it still appears that Informix under Solaris can support a > maximum physical disk size of around (6 * 2.01 GB), which comes out to > [I goed to colledge] around 12GB, assuming I *want* to make all the > chunks the maximum of 2GB, which I often don't. We recently purchased a > Sun E450, which we ordered with 18GB disks. In practive, I've been able > to use only around 60-70% of the disk space purchased, and as disk > densities increase, the problem will only worsen. > > Can someone pleeeez tell me that I'm wrong about this limit? ;-) > > Rich > -- > Richard C. Auslander > Database Manager > > AirFlash, Inc. > 1733 Woodside Rd., Suite #110 > Redwood City, CA 94061 > (650) 556-7928 > > www.airflash.com -- Richard C. Auslander Database Manager AirFlash, Inc. 1733 Woodside Rd., Suite #110 Redwood City, CA 94061 (650) 556-7928 www.airflash.com