Communicator e3000 MPE/iX Release 6.5 (Non-Platform Software Release C.65.00 (30216-90291)

Chapter 3 63

Growth Solution

Support for 511 Disks on MPE/iX

by N. A. Narayanan

Commercial Systems Division

Introduction

Beginning with MPE/iX Release 6.5, it is possible to conﬁgure up to 511 spindles, an

increase from the present limit of 255 disks.

Conﬁguring More Than 255 Disks

The existing utilities volutil and mirvutil are used to conﬁgure more than 255 disks.

There are no interface changes to these utilities to conﬁgure more than 255 disks.

• However, it is not possible to conﬁgure more than 255 disks in a volume set. This was

the same limit present in 6.0. HP recommends that customers use multiple volume sets

when a large number of disks are installed on a single system.

• Also, it is possible to conﬁgure 255 mirrored pairs (510 disks) in a mirrored volume set.

User Interface Changes

• Sysgen has been modiﬁed to conﬁgure up to 511 disks in a device class. Until 6.5,

sysgen could conﬁgure only up to 255 devices in a device class.

• Utilities like volutil, mirvutil, dstat, discfree, etc. can display information

related to more than 255 disks now.

• Mirvutil can conﬁgure up to 255 mirrored pairs (510 disks) in a single mirrored

volume set now.

• Apart from the above, there are no changes in the interface of any of the utilities.

Forward/Backward Compatibility Issues

There are no compatibility issues between 6.5 and 6.0 or between 6.5 and 5.0/5.5. A system

that has been installed with 6.5 can be back-dated to 6.0 without any problem, as long as it

does not have more than 255 spindles conﬁgured. The same holds good for back-dating

from 6.5 to 5.0/5.5.