Beginning with the Solaris 10 release, device ID output is displayed in a new format. Solaris Volume Manager may display the device ID output in a new or old format depending on when the device id information was added to the state database replica.

Previously, the device ID was displayed as a hexadecimal value. The new format displays the device ID as an ASCII string. In many cases, the change is negligible, as in the following example:

In other cases, the change is more noticeable, as in the following example:

When you upgrade to the Solaris 10 release, the format of the device IDs that are associated with existing disk sets that were created in a previous Solaris release are not updated in the Solaris Volume Manager configuration. If you need to revert back to a previous Solaris release, configuration changes made to disk sets after the upgrade might not available to that release. These configuration changes include:

These configuration changes can affect all disk sets that you are able to create in Solaris Volume Manager, including the local set. For example, if you implement any of these changes to a disk set created in the Solaris 10 release, you cannot import the disk set to a previous Solaris release. As another example, you might upgrade one side of a mirrored root to the Solaris 10 release and then make configuration changes to the local set. These changes would not be recognized if you then incorporated the submirror back into the previous Solaris release.

The Solaris 10 OS configuration always displays the new format of the device ID, even in the case of an upgrade. You can display this information using the prtconf v command. Conversely, Solaris Volume Manager displays either the old or the new format. Which format is displayed in Solaris Volume Manager depends on which version of the Solaris OS you were running when you began using the disk. To determine if Solaris Volume Manager is displaying a different, but equivalent, form of the device ID from that of the Solaris OS configuration, compare the output from the metastat command with the output from the prtconf v command.

In the following example, the metastat command output displays a different, but equivalent, form of the device ID for c1t6d0 from the prtconf v command output for the same disk.

# metastat
d127: Concat/Stripe
    Size: 17629184 blocks (8.4 GB)
    Stripe 0:
        Device     Start Block  Dbase   Reloc
        c1t6d0s2      32768     Yes     Yes

Device Relocation Information:
Device   Reloc  Device ID c1t6d0   Yes    id1,sd@w4849544143484920444b3332454a2d33364e4320202020203433334239383939

# prtconf -v
.(output truncated)

.
.
sd, instance #6
         System properties:
              name='lun' type=int items=1
                 value=00000000
              name='target' type=int items=1
                 value=00000006
              name='class' type=string items=1
                 value='scsi'
         Driver properties:
              name='pm-components' type=string items=3 dev=none
                 value='NAME=spindle-motor' + '0=off' + '1=on'
              name='pm-hardware-state' type=string items=1 dev=none
                 value='needs-suspend-resume'
              name='ddi-failfast-supported' type=boolean dev=none
              name='ddi-kernel-ioctl' type=boolean dev=none
              Hardware properties:
              name='devid' type=string items=1
                 value='id1,@THITACHI_DK32EJ-36NC_____433B9899'
.
.
.
(output truncated)

The line containing “instance #6” in the output from the prtconf v command correlates to the disk c1t6d0 in the output from the metastat command. The device id, id1,@THITACHI_DK32EJ-36NC_____433B9899, in the output from the prtconf v command correlates to the device id, id1,sd@w4849544143484920444b3332454a2d33364e4320202020203433334239383939, in the output from the metastat command. This difference in output indicates that Solaris Volume Manager is displaying the hexadecimal form of the device ID in the output from the metastat command, while the Solaris 10 OS configuration is displaying an ASCII string in the output from the prtconf command.