If you can see a device listed in the Devices list, but the device is not available for creating pools and volumes, you probably need to initialize the disk.
On the Devices page, the Initialize Disk option initializes the selected device and completely removes all the partitions it contains. All the data stored on the device is lost. If the device contains a partition of an NSS pool, a Traditional volume, or a software RAID device, the Initialize process also deletes data on all of the partitions of the entire pool, volume, or device, even if they reside on separate devices.
WARNING:Do not initialize the device that contains a system volume (such as /boot, swap, and / (root)). Initializing the system volume destroys the operating system and all the data in it.
This option is disabled (dimmed) if the selected device contains Software RAID 1 (mirrored) device.
It can also be disabled if there is no space available based on each partition’s size, or if you already have the maximum number of partitions allocated in a software RAID device.
NOTE:You can also use ncsinit utility to initialize and to set the device to a shared state. For more information, refer Section B.14, ncsinit.
To initialize a disk from iManager:
In iManager, click Storage > Devices.
For instructions, see Section 9.1.5, Accessing Roles and Tasks in iManager.
Select a server to manage to view the Devices list.
For instructions, see Section 9.1.6, Selecting a Server to Manage.
A list of devices appears in the Devices list.
In the Devices list, select the device that you want to initialize (such as sdd).
NOTE:You can select multiple devices for initialization.
Select MBR Type (Master Boot Record) from the following options:
DOS: The DOS partition table scheme supports devices up to 2TB in size.
GPT: The GPT partition table scheme supports device sizes up to 2E64 sectors (that is, up to 8388608 petabytes (PB) based on the 512-byte sector size). It allows up to 128 partitions per disk. Each of its disks partitions is a logical device that is identified by a unique 128-bit (16-byte) GUID. Select the GPT option to create the device > 2 TB in size.
IMPORTANT:Pools created on GPT initialized devices are not backward compatible with versions earlier to OES 11.
Click Initialize Disk.
To initialize a disk from NSSMU:
In NSSMU, click Devices.
A list of devices appears in the Devices list.
In the Devices list, select a device.
NOTE:You can select multiple devices for initialization.
Press F3 to Initialize Disk.
Select Partitioning Scheme from the following options
DOS: The DOS partition table scheme supports devices up to 2TB in size.
GPT: The GPT partition table scheme supports device sizes up to 2E64 sectors (that is, up to 8388608 petabytes (PB) based on the 512-byte sector size). It allows up to 128 partitions per disk. Each of its disks partitions is a logical device that is identified by a unique 128-bit (16-byte) GUID. Select the GPT option to create the device of any size.
If you encounter any error, refer to the log messages at /var/log/messages. The messages are preceded with NSSMU.