How to Add and Configure an External Hard Drive to Solaris

Solaris is the premier operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. It is based on the Unix design and includes object-oriented functionality as featured in the Java programming language. It is easy to add and configure an external hard drive to Solaris, whether it is Universal Serial Bus (USB) or SCSI (Small Computer System Interface).

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Free SCSI or USB port
• External hard drive
• Solaris 10

Add and Configure an External Hard Drive to Solaris Using USB

1. Turn on your computer and log on to Solaris as a system administrator. Non-administrators, unless given the appropriate server permissions by the system administrator, will not be able to add or configure an external hard drive or any hardware.
2. Plug your external hard drive into one of your free USB ports.
3. Wait for Solaris to detect the addition of the hard drive. This usually takes just a few seconds, but timing varies by hard drive model.
4. Install any drivers required to make your hard drive function. Drivers are usually included on a CD that accompanies the drive from the manufacturer.
5. Restart your computer when prompted to do so.

Add and Configure an External Hard Drive to Solaris Using an SCSI Port

6. Locate the SCSI port connector on the back of your computer. This port will look similar to the printer port, but is longer and has more connectors.
7. Connect the SCSI cable to the SCSI ports on the computer as well as the hard drive.
8. Assign the SCSI drive an ID within Solaris. The ID must be one that is not currently in use by the operating system. A single number is all that is required for the ID code.
9. Turn on the SCSI drive once it has been connected to the computer's SCSI port.
10. Confirm that the SCSI drive has been detected by Solaris by using the "cfgadm" command. This command will display all connected devices by ID. If the ID number you used to identify the SCSI drive is listed, it has been properly installed and configured to run.

Tips & Warnings

• Set your external drive to be the boot drive by using the "boot" command in the Solaris shell, followed by the installed drive's system designation.
• If you are using a version of Solaris prior to version eight, you will not be able to add an external hard drive over 20 GB in size. It is recommended that you upgrade to Solaris 10 to take advantage of the latest functionality updates.

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