Raw and Block Device

Raw and Block Device

Use a physical volume’s raw device file for these tasks only:
• When preparing a physical volume for LVM using the pvcreate command. Here, you use the device file for the disk. For example, this might be /dev/rdisk/disk14. (The absence of a partition suffix indicates you are referring to the entire disk.)
• When removing LVM information from a physical volume using the pvremove command.
• When restoring your volume group configuration using the vgcfgrestore command.
• When performing a consistency check on a physical volume using the pvck command.
• When modifying the volume group identifier on a physical volume using the vgchgid command.

For all other tasks, use the block device file. For example, when you add a physical volume to a volume group using the vgextend command, you use the disk’s block device file for the disk, such as /dev/disk/disk14. All disk device files are created automatically when a new disk is discovered. Refer to insf(1M) for more information.