Solaris 10 Disk Labels VTOC (Volume Table of Contents)
A special area of every disk is set aside for storing information about the disk’s controller, geometry, and slices. This information is called the disk’s label. To label a disk means to write slice information onto the disk. You usually label a disk after you change its slices.
Solaris supports the following two disk labels:
SMI – The traditional VTOC label for disks that are less than 2 TB in size.
EFI – Provides support for disks larger than 2 TB. The Extensible Firmware Interface GUID Partition Table (EFI GPT) disk label is also available for disks less than 2 TB.
Use “format -e” command to apply an SMI label to a disk:
# format -e
Searching for disks...done
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0t5000CCAxxxxxxxxxd0
/scsi_vhci/disk@g5000ccaxxxxxxxxx
1. c0t5000CCAxxxxxxxxxd0
/scsi_vhci/disk@g5000ccaxxxxxxxxx
2. c0t5000CCAxxxxxxxxxd0
/scsi_vhci/disk@g5000ccaxxxxxxxxx
Specify disk (enter its number): 2
selecting c0t5000CCA02D020410d0
[disk formatted]
FORMAT MENU:
disk - select a disk
type - select (define) a disk type
partition - select (define) a partition table
current - describe the current disk
format - format and analyze the disk
repair - repair a defective sector
label - write label to the disk
analyze - surface analysis
defect - defect list management
backup - search for backup labels
verify - read and display labels
inquiry - show vendor, product and revision
scsi - independent SCSI mode selects
cache - enable, disable or query SCSI disk cache
volname - set 8-character volume name
! - execute , then return
quit
format> label
[0] SMI Label
[1] EFI Label
Specify Label type[1]: 0
Auto configuration via format.dat[no]? yes
format> quit