Date: Wed, 10 Apr 96 19:16:33 EDT From: gtc@aloft.att.com (gary.corcoran) To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Disk questions Message-ID: <9604102316.AA14420@stargazer>
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I just added a second SCSI disk to my new FreeBSD setup to get some room to
grow beyond the basics. As I'm still a new user of FreeBSD, I have some
questions...
1. Is there any difference between what MS-DOS calls a 'partition'
and what FreeBSD calls a 'slice' ?
I have my second hard disk setup with the following (MS-DOS) partitions:
Partition 1: DOS
Partition 2: Unused (for the moment)
Partition 3: Unused (for the moment)
Partition 4: FreeBSD
I setup the FreeBSD slice in disktab with an 'a' partition, a 'b' partition,
and of course a 'c' partition.
2. The man page isn't clear on this: are the 'offsets' in the disktab
describing the partitions relative to the _slice_ and NOT the start of the
entire disk?
3. Does FreeBSD automagically find the FreeBSD partition (i.e. slice) based
on the entries in the MS-DOS partition table, thus enabling the FreeBSD
partitions to be described and accessed with only sizes and offsets relative
to the slice? For example, even though I have my FreeBSD partition/slice
as number 4, is it correct to simply access the FreeBSD filesystem on my
second disk as /dev/sd1a ?
4. Under /dev, I noticed entries of the form sd?s[1-4]. Do these refer
to the various slices of sd0 and sd1 ?
5. My primary swap is referenced as sd0s1b. How do I reference my swap
('b' partition) on my second disk? I would guess that it might be
referenced as sd1s4b - but there is no such device in /dev. Can MAKEDEV
make this? If so, what option(s) should I give to MAKEDEV?
6. Is sd1s4b the "proper" way to refer to my secondary swap partition, or
is sd1b okay/sufficient/the same ? I haven't tried to enable my secondary
swap yet - I don't want to accidently scribble on a wrong portion of my
disk! At least not until I learn how to make FreeBSD backups using my
new SCSI DAT drive which I also just installed... ;-}
Thank you for taking the time to help another newcomer...
Gary Corcoran
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