Solaris: How to Copy the Partition Table From One Disk to Another With prtvtoc and fmthard Command also for Mirrored Disks and Solaris Volume Manager (SVM)

(Doc ID 1386408.1)

Last updated on MAY 18, 2017

Applies to:

Sun Solaris Volume Manager (SVM) - Version 11.9.0 to 11.11 [Release 11.0]
Solstice DiskSuite Software - Version 4.2.1 to 4.2.1 [Release 4.0]
Solaris Operating System - Version 8 6/00 U1 to 11.1 [Release 8.0 to 11.0]
Oracle Solaris on x86 (32-bit)
Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit)
Oracle Solaris on SPARC (32-bit)
Oracle Solaris on x86-64 (64-bit)

Goal

It is a best practice when mirroring data on two disks to make their partition tables identical.  There are a number of ways to accomplish this.  The easiest and least prone to clerical error is to use the prtvtoc command to read the label of the source disk and pipe the output to the fmthard command to write the label on the target disk, as described below.

The partition table is also referred to as the disk label. Sometimes the acronym VTOC is used as a general term, though technically this is only one type of disk label, the other being EFI.  For further information about the types of disk labels, please refer to
<Document 1012091.1> Overview of Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) Disk Labels Versus Volume Table of Contents (VTOC) in the Solaris Operating System.

Solution

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