How to determine if a drive is internal or external (Enterprise Classic)

Asset ID:	1-71-1376679.1
Update Date:	2011-11-23
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1376679.1 : How to determine if a drive is internal or external (Enterprise Classic)

Applies to:

Sun Enterprise 5500 Server - Version: Not Applicable and later   [Release: N/A and later ]
Sun Enterprise 6500 Server - Version: Not Applicable and later    [Release: N/A and later]
Sun Enterprise 4000 Server - Version: Not Applicable and later    [Release: N/A and later]
Sun Enterprise 4500 Server - Version: Not Applicable and later    [Release: N/A and later]
Sun Enterprise 6000 Server - Version: Not Applicable and later    [Release: N/A and later]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Goal

Determine if a disk on a Ultra Enterprise Sunfire Classic machine is internal or external

Solution

The first thing to look at is prtdiag -v output.
If the machine has a disk board it will appear like this:

Detached Boards
===============
   Slot     State     Type       Info
   ----    -----     -----      ----------------------------------
    15     disabled    disk      Disk 0: Target: 10 Disk 1: Target 11

Because disk boards are connected to the scsi bus via external cables
just like an external disk pack/array, it is often difficult to determine if a disk on an Enterprise classic 4000 / 4500 / 5000 / 5500 / 6000 /6500 is internal to the server or external.

Another clue to determine if the disk is internal, is to note the SCSI target ID of the disk.
The default SCSI ID numbers for disk drives on the Disk boards are
determined by the following table copied from appendix C in
Doc: Sun 6500 / 5500 / 4500 Enterprise Systems Reference Manual

Board Slot	Disk 0 (On disk board)	Disk 1 (On disk Board)
0	4	5
1	6	7
2	0	1
3	10	11
4	2	3
5	12	13
6	8	9
7	14	15
14	0	1
15	10 *	11 *

*Enterprise 6500 systems: Disk boards can only be installed in slots
14 and 15.

Another thing to be aware of is the sizes of disks supported on the internal disk boards
This will give you a clue if the disk in question is internal or external.

A disk board contains 2 disks:

2 X 2.1 gig 7200 rpm
2 X 4.2 gig 7200 rpm
2 X 9.1 gig 7200 rpm
2 X 18.2 gig 10000 rpm

References

<NOTE:1004664.1> - Decoding Enterprise[TM] 3000, 3500, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, and 6500 Server device paths to identify a board slot number.

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