SUMMARY: can i increase no. of partitions ?

sandesh p. babu (sandesh@wipro.co.in)
Fri, 05 Dec 1997 04:58:42 -0500

hello all -

I have had some assertive answers for my query and have concluded ( as
an admin ) :

'8' cannot be exceeded without an additional software like Veritas
Volume Manager.

But, my client would not go for this ( although he has the s/w , does
not have license for non-ssa disks ). Instead is planning for multiple
4gb disks in lieu of 9gb ones which he is yet to order.

Many thanks to all who responded which include ( some of their comments
too ) :

Stephen Frost <sfrost@mitretek.org>

Bill Duncan <bill@ripag1.fmr.com>

Frederic Piard <Frederic.Piard@erli.fr>

-said- In this case I would add one more disk and create the new
partitions on ths new disc.

Todd Boss <boss@netcom.com>

-said- Not without Veritas volume manager. Sorry. On the bright side
VxVM is a nice product that seamlessly provides this functioanlity.

Tom Erickson <Thomas.M.Erickson.1@gsfc.nasa.gov>

Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au

OmKumar <omkumar@india.ti.com>

Joseph S D Yao <jsdy@tux.org>

-said- No. The physical disk drive is minor-number/8; the partition is
minor-number%8. This is hard-wired in the disk driver, and possibly
other parts of the kernel. I've only seen it different in HP-UX, where
they changed it from 8 to 16, and in Linux, where it's 64.


Special thanks to ravkrish@in.oracle.com and nkaynada@in.oracle.com who
gave me some insight to the issue.

My query was -

>Is it possible to increase the number of partitions on a disk connected
>to Solaris 2.5.1 machine from the default value 8 ( 0-7 ) ? Is there a
>way I can change the functionality of format to create more partitions
>?
>
>Also, I would not like to go in for Veritas Volume Manager or such stuff
>just for this purpose.

thanks again,
-Sandesh.