Hub/Switch Installation Guide

Chapter 3 System Preparation
148 September 2002 HPSS Installation Guide
Release 4.5, Revision 2
◆ Disk Storage Server metadata files (separate volume per disk storage server)
◆ Tape Storage Server metadata files (separate volume per tape storage server)
◆ All others
• As a common rule, target having 5-8 data volumes
• TheSFSlogvolumemustbemirroredonatleasttwo(2)separatephysicaldisksorbestored
on a redundant RAID device
• Each SFS data volume must be mirrored on at least two(2) separate physical disks or be
stored on a redundant RAID device
• Separate disks should be used to store the SFS log volume versus the SFS data volumes
3.3.1 AIX
The recommended way of allocating data volumes across disks using AIX is to pool all SFS data
volume disks into one volume group and, when creating the data volumes as raw AIX logical
volumes,set theMaximumNumber ofPhysical Volumes to usefor allocationfield inSMIT tothe
total number of disks in the volumegroup and set the Number of Copies of each logicalpartition
to 2.
This causes each data volume to be spread out evenly across all disks, while keeping the mirrored
image of each partition on a different physical disk from the primary copy.
For example, suppose we have 8 physical disks to be used for SFS data volumes. We create a
volumegroupcalledsfsvgandput all8 disksinthisVG.When creatingalogical volumetobeused
as a data volume, we specify sfsvg as the volume group, raw as the Logical volume type, 8 as the
Maximum Number of Physical Volumes to use for allocation, and 2 as the Number of Copies of
each logical partition. The first part of this disk device will be on disk #1 with its mirrored image
on disk #2. The next part of the devicewill beon disk#2withitsmirroredimageondisk#3,andso
on.
The resultof thisapproach is a nice distribution of the metadata filesand associatedaccess activity
evenly spread across all SFS disks. The load distribution across multiple disk heads yields better
overall performance.
This mkhpss utility is used to configure Encina SFS servers. The utility will prompt the
administrator for logical volume names to use for SFS log and data volumes. If these logical
volumesdonotalreadyexist,mkhpsswillpromptyoufortheinformationnecessarytocreatethem
(e.g. volume group name, number of partitions to use, number of copies) and do the creation for
you.
3.3.2 Solaris
The mkhpss utility will prompt for a disk name to be used to create a logical volume for the SFS
server. It then initializes the disk, creates a physical volume, and creates a logical volume.