Copyright 2014, Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates

Supporting ASM on 4 KB Sector Disks

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By: Esteban Bernal

 Q & A.

References

Sector Size configuration (ASM/Database).

Using 4 KB Sector Disks.

Configuration Types.

4 KB Sector Disks Overview.

Agenda

4K Disks Overview

 With ASM, the database writer, log writer, and ASM

processes can write directly to the disk without going
through the operating system (OS Filesystem).

Without ASM, Oracle Database server access the hard

disk via a platform specific device driver.

Larger, 4 KB sector disks are beginning to appear on the

market offering higher storage capacity with a lower
overhead.

Currently have predominantly a physical sectorsize of

512 bytes.

Overview

detect the disk

4 KB sector disks have physical sectors (shown in gray)

and logical sectors (shown in blue).

On 11gR2 & onwards, ASM/Database

sector size.

Overview (cont.)


Native Mode:

Emulation Mode:

There are two types of 4 KB sector disks configuration:

Types.

 You will incur a significant performance degradation in

emulation mode when a redo log write is not aligned with
the beginning of the 4 KB physical sector.

That is, the logical block address (LBA) references 512

bytes on disk.

They maintain a 512-byte interface to their 4 KB physical

sectors.

4 KB sector disks in emulation mode have eight logical

sectors per one physical sector.

Emulation mode.

 Additional configuration is required at ASM/Database

level.

Whereas, Logical sectors are still = 512 bytes.

Physical sectors are = 4K.

Emulation mode (cont).

No additional configuration is required at ASM/Database

level.

Logical Sector Size is automatically discovered by

ASM/Database.

So, there is only the 4 KB interface. In other words, the LBA

references 4096 bytes on disk.

Both Logical and Physical sectors match the same size =

4K.

4 KB sector disks in native mode have one logical sector

per physical sector.

Native mode.

 For 4 KB emulation-mode disks, the redo block size could

be 512 or 4096 bytes (4 KB is the preferred block size).

On 4 KB native mode disks, you must create 4 KB block

size logs.

This includes online redo logs, standby redo logs, and

archived redo logs.

4 KB sector disks mainly affect the redo log files.

Using 4 KB Sector Disks

 The control file block size is already 16KB. Therefore, the

4KB sector disks do not affect the control file.

On 4KB native-mode disks, you must create 4KB block (or

larger) size datafile.

With 4KB sector disks, Oracle recommends that you

create 4KB (or larger) block size (db_block_size) datafiles
on the 4KB emulation-mode disks.

Oracle allows you to create 2KB block size data files on

512 byte sector disks.

The 4KB sector disks also affect the datafiles.

Using 4 KB Sector Disks (cont.)

Native mode:

Mandatory 4KB block size

Recommended 4KB block
for redo logs.
size for redo logs.
Mandatory 4KB
Recommended 4KB
db_block_size (or larger) for
db_block_size (or larger) for
datafiles.
datafiles.
Control file block size is already = 16k (non-affected).

Emulation mode:

Using 4 KB Sector Disks (cont.)

Where: sdb is the 4k physical disk/lun/volume/device.

Emulation mode example:

A) Determinate whether the 4K disks are in Emulation or

Native Mode.

Sector Size configuration.

Where: sdb is the 4k physical disk/lun/volume/device.

Native mode example:

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

B)
If
Emulation
mode
then
set
the
_disk_sector_size_override= TRUE parameter in the ASM
instance (restart is required):

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

Note
2:
Native
mode
does
not
"_disk_sector_size_override"=TRUE parameter .

require

Alert: After SAN Firmware Upgrade, ASM Diskgroups

(Using ASMLIB) Cannot Be Mounted Due To ORA-15085:
ASM disk "" has inconsistent sector size. (Doc ID
1500460.1)

See the following document for additional information:

Note 1: ASMLIB (old releases): ********* Warning !!!!! *********

: Never set the "_disk_sector_size_override"=TRUE parameter
in the ASM instance(s) as a workaround, since this
parameter will corrupt the ASM diskgroups.

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

C) Create the Diskgroup with 'sector_size'='4096 attribute:

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

If the SECTOR_SIZE attribute is explicitly specified when

creating a diskgroup, then ASM attempts to verify that all
disks discovered through disk search strings have a sector
size equal to the specified value. If one or more disks were
found to have a sector size different from the specified
value, or if ASM was not able to verify a disk sector size,
then the create operation fails.

ASM prevents disks of different sector sizes from being

added to the same diskgroup. This validation occurs during
CREATE DISKGROUP, ALTER DISKGROUP ADD DISK, and
ALTER DISKGROUP MOUNT operations.

Sector Size rules:

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

If the SECTOR_SIZE attribute is not specified when creating

a diskgroup and ASM can verify that all discovered disks
have the same sector value, then that value is assumed for
the disk group sector size that is created. If the disks have
different sector sizes, the create operation fails.

ASM also attempts to verify disk sector size during the

mount operation and the operation fails if one or more
disks have a sector size different than the value of the
SECTOR_SIZE attribute.

Sector Size rules (cont.):

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

1) Trying to simulate 4K sector size diskgroups with 512 bytes physical

sector size disks.
2) When Logical sector size is 512 bytes and physical sector size is 4K.

Note: "_disk_sector_size_override" hidden parameter is

used when there is a conflict between detected sector
size and preferred sector size, example:

When new disks are added to an existing diskgroup using

the ALTER DISKGROUP .. ADD DISK SQL statement, you must
ensure that the new disks to be added have the same
value as the SECTOR_SIZE disk group attribute. If the new
disks have different sector sizes, the alter operation fails.

Sector Size rules (cont.):

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

D) Create the database using the 4K diskgroup(s):

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

Sector Size configuration (cont.).

Sector Size configuration (cont.).


Alert: After SAN Firmware Upgrade, ASM Diskgroups ( Using ASMLIB)

Cannot Be Mounted Due To ORA-15085: ASM disk "" has inconsistent
sector size. (Doc ID 1500460.1)

Supporting 4K Sector Disks [Video] (Doc ID 1133713.1)

4K ASM Sector Size (Doc ID 1630790.1)

.

References