Solaris Volume Manager Configuration Guidelines

A poorly designed Solaris Volume Manager configuration can degrade performance. This section offers tips for achieving good performance from Solaris Volume Manager. For information on storage configuration performance guidelines, see General Performance Guidelines.

General Guidelines

• Disk and controllers – Place drives in a volume on separate drive paths, or for SCSI drives, separate host adapters. An I/O load distributed over several controllers improves volume performance and availability.

• System files – Never edit or remove the /etc/lvm/mddb.cf or /etc/lvm/md.cf files.

  Make sure these files are backed up regularly.

• Volume Integrity – If a slice is defined as a volume, do not use the underlying slice for any other purpose, including using the slice as a dump device.

• Information about disks and partitions – Keep a copy of output from the prtvtoc and metastat -p commands in case you need to reformat a bad disk or recreate your Solaris Volume Manager configuration.

File System Guidelines

Do not mount file systems on a volume's underlying slice. If a slice is used for a volume of any kind, you must not mount that slice as a file system. If possible, unmount any physical device that you intend to use as a volume before you activate the volume.