SMI: SMI – Sun Microsystem Inc Label
1. Typically, SPARC based Solaris based
file system.
SPARC VTOC is often called as SMI VTOC.
2. Can define 8 partitions (0-7).
3. Provides support to < 1Tb.
4. Occupies first sector of a disk in
SPARC arch systems.
5. Must be used for SPARC, X86/X64
based boot disks.
6. Maintains 2 partition tables on each
disk on X86/X64.
(a) First sector : Contains fixed disk
(fdisk) partition table
(b) Second sector: Holds the partition
table that defines slices in the Solaris ‘fdisk’ partition.
EFI: EFI – Extensible Firmware interface
1. Can define up to 10 disk partitions
(0-9).
2. Supports > 1 Tb on 64-bit Solaris
kernel.
3. Compatible with UFS and can create a
UFS that is larger than 1Tb.
4. Do not currently boot from disk that
use EFI label on Solaris 10.
Solaris 11 support boot disk with EFI (GPT) label.
SPARC systems require an updated OBP to boot from an EFI (GPT) labeled
disk.
X86 systems that supports GRUB 2 boots from an EFI (GPT) labeled disk.
5. Provide usable slices 0-6, where
slice 2 is just another slice.
6. Slices cannot overlap with the
primary or backup labels or with other partition.
7. No cylinder, head or sector
information is stored in the EFI label.
8. Sizes are reported in blocks.
9. EFI labeled information that is
stored in alternate cylinder areas (last 2 disk cylinder) is stored in slice 8.
10. On EFI, slice 2 can be resized.
11. EFI label size is usually 34
sectors, so partitions start at sector 34. This feature means that no partition
can start at sector 0.
12. EFI does not support -
At ‘format’ utility -
(a) ‘save’ is not supported. Because EFI
labeled disks do not need a format.dat file entry.
(b) ‘backup’ is not applicable. Because the
disk driver finds the primary label and write it back to the disk.
