VERITAS Volume Manager 3.1 Administrator's Guide

Volume Tasks
Creating a Volume
Chapter 6238
that can be used to access the volume:
• /dev/vx/dsk/ volume_name (the block device node for the volume)
• /dev/vx/rdsk/ volume_name (the raw device node for the volume)
For volumes in rootdg and disk groups other than rootdg, these
names include the disk group name, as follows:
• /dev/vx/dsk/ diskgroup_name / volume_name
• /dev/vx/rdsk/ diskgroup_name / volume_name
The following section, “Creating a Concatenated Volume” describes
the simplest way to create a (default) volume. Later sections describe
how to create volumes with specific attributes.
Creating a Concatenated Volume
By default, the vxassist command creates a concatenated volume that
uses one or more sections of disk space. On a fragmented disk, this
allows you to put together a volume larger than any individual section of
free disk space available.
If there is not enough space on a single disk, vxassist creates a spanned
volume. A spanned volume is a concatenated volume with sections of
disk space spread across more than one disk. A spanned volume can be
larger than the single largest disk, since it takes space from more than
one disk.
Creating a Concatenated Volume on Any Disk
If no disk is specified, the Volume Manager selects a disk on which to
create the volume.
To create a concatenated, default volume, use the following command:
# vxassist make volume_name length
where volume_name is the name of the volume and length specifies the
length of the volume in sectors (unless another unit of size is specified
with a suffix character).
When you resize a volume, you can specify the length of a new volume in
sectors, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes. The unit of measure is added
as a suffix to the length (s, m, k, or g). If no unit is specified, sectors are
assumed.