User Guide

Overview of Server Disks and Storage Devices 9
NetWare Server Disks and Storage Devices Administration Guide
103-000179-001
August 30, 2001
Novell Confidential
Manual 99a38 July 17, 2001
1 Overview of Server Disks and Storage
Devices
Server hard disks and remote storage devices (such as tape drives and CD-
ROM drives) are all managed by the NetWare
®
operating system.
Hard disks are divided into partitions, including one DOS partition and at least
one NetWare partition per server. A hard disk can also contain other partitions,
such as a UNIX* partition. For general information about disk partitions, see
“Partitioning Disks” on page 10 and “Logical Partitions” on page 11.
All storage devices and individual disk partitions are identified by numbers
assigned by the NetWare operating system Media Manager. The same number
represents the same device in all NetWare utilities or console commands. For
an explanation of the device numbering system, see “Device and Partition
Numbering” on page 12.
All storage devices require drivers. The NetWare Peripheral Architecture
TM
(NWPA) divides device drivers into two types: a custom device module
(CDM) that drives the device itself and a host adapter module (HAM) that
drives the adapter the device is attached to. For more information, see “Drivers
for Host Adapters and Storage Devices” on page 16.
To increase data fault tolerance, you can mirror partitions to partitions on other
disks. For information about mirroring, see “Mirroring and Duplexing” on
page 16. NetWare also includes a feature called Hot Fix
TM
which redirects any
information stored on corrupted blocks to uncorrupted blocks. See
“Redirecting Bad Blocks” on page 18.