Solaris: How to view partition slices

In Solaris, partitioning is a little different that linux. Everything is divided into slices, and there is a total of eight slices per partition. Each partition pertains to a disk.

So to access the partition menu, you type the format command, and after selecting the disk you want to view, you would type partition at the format prompt:

format> partition

PARTITION MENU:
0 - change `0' partition
1 - change `1' partition
2 - change `2' partition
3 - change `3' partition
4 - change `4' partition
5 - change `5' partition
6 - change `6' partition
7 - change `7' partition
select - select a predefined table
modify - modify a predefined partition table
name - name the current table
print - display the current table
label - write partition map and label to the disk
! - execute , then return
quit

From here, you would only need to type print, to print the partition slices.

partition> print

Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 3361 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
1 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
2 backup wu 0-3360 1.12GB (3361/0/0) 2352700
3 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
4 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
5 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
6 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0
7 unassigned wm 0 0 (0/0/0) 0

And there you have it. In slice 2 of that particular disk, you have 1.12GB set up. This doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't extra space on the disk partition that isn't being used, it just means that only 1.12GB has been set for slice 2 and nothing else for the rest. When you begin to set slices, you can actually see how much there is left.