State Database Replicas Guidelines and Requirements
You should distribute state database replicas across slices, drives, and controllers, to
avoid single points of failure. You want a majority of replicas to survive
a single component failure. If you lose a replica, when a device
fails, for example, the failure might cause problems with running Solaris Volume Manager
software or when rebooting the system. Solaris Volume Manager software requires at
least half of the replicas to be available to run, but a
majority (half plus one) to reboot into multiuser mode.
For detailed instructions about creating and administering state database replicas, see Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide.
Selecting Slices for State Database Replicas
Before selecting slices for state database replicas, consider the following guidelines and recommendations.
Task |
Description |
|---|
Choose
a dedicated slice |
You should create state database replicas on a dedicated slice
of at least 4 MB per replica. If necessary, you could create
state database replicas on a slice that is to be used as
part of a RAID-0 or RAID-1 volume. You must create the replicas
before you add the slice to the volume. |
Resize a slice |
By default, the
size of a state database replica is 4 MB or 8192
disk blocks. Because your disk slices might not be that small, you can
resize a slice to hold the state database replica. For information about
resizing a slice, see Chapter 11, Administering Disks (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems. |
Choose a slice that is not in use |
You can
create state database replicas on slices that are not in use. The
part of a slice that is reserved for the state database replica should
not be used for any other purpose. |
|
You cannot create state
database replicas on existing file systems, or the root (/), /usr, and
swap file systems. If necessary, you can create a new slice
(provided a slice name is available) by allocating space from swap
and then put state database replicas on that new slice. |
Choosing a
slice that becomes a volume |
When a state database replica is placed on
a slice that becomes part of a volume, the capacity of the
volume is reduced by the space that is occupied by the replica
or replicas. The space that is used by a replica is rounded up
to the next cylinder boundary and this space is skipped by
the volume. |
Choosing the Number of State Database Replicas
Before choosing the number of state database replicas, consider the following guidelines.
A minimum of 3 state database replicas are recommended, up to a maximum of 50 replicas per Solaris Volume Manager disk set. The following guidelines are recommended:
For a system with only a single drive: put all three replicas in one slice.
For a system with two to four drives: put two replicas on each drive.
For a system with five or more drives: put one replica on each drive.
Additional state database replicas can improve the mirror's performance. Generally, you need to add two replicas for each mirror you add to the system.
If you have a RAID-1 volume that is to be used for small-sized random I/O (for example, for a database), consider your number of replicas. For best performance, ensure that you have at least two extra replicas per RAID-1 volume on slices (and preferably on disks and controllers) that are unconnected to the RAID-1 volume.
Distributing State Database Replicas Across Controllers
If multiple controllers exist, replicas should be distributed as evenly as possible
across all controllers. This strategy provides redundancy if a controller fails and also
helps balance the load. If multiple disks exist on a controller, at
least two of the disks on each controller should store a replica.
