SCSA10-1 Objective 2.2 - Solaris disk architecture, UFS file system
The whole point of a computer system is ultimately about manipulating files. Files live in a filesystem on disks. Understanding how these work is crucial to a system administrator. This objective:
Explain disk architecture including the UFS file system capabilities and naming conventions for devices for SPARC, x64, and x86-based systems.
The UNIX File System (UFS) is described nicely here and also at Sun’s documentation website. Note these terms in particular: block, superblock, cylinder groups. Solaris 10 supports UFS logging, also known as jouraling or intent logging. Enabling UFS logging improves boot speed (by reducing the need for filesystem checks at boot) and overall disk performance.
Solaris 10 will soon (like tomorrow) support ZFS, a 128-bit filesystem, literally called “Zettabyte File System” which has tons of cool features: multiple block sizes, unlimited read/write snapshots, ad mind boggling size — 16 billion, billion times more space than 32- or 64-bit filesystems.
Understanding how Solaris refers to disk devices is critical to system administration. c0t0d0s0? For SPARC and x86/x64 hardware, check out Sun’s documentation describing the logical disk naming scheme.