i dont get it...

...can some one explain the harddisk/partition naming scheme that freeBSD uses? im confused.

i know it something like ad0s10 or something like that, but linux's naming is easy to follow (eg hda3), i would like to know what all those numbers mean in the freebsd naming scheme.

thanks
/weed

I'm not a BSD user, but the FreeBSD handbook may be able to help: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...ooks/handbook/

Bryan

Nor am I a BSD user, but having struggled through the FreeBSD install recently (and regretting it soon after), here's what I understand/believe:

The scheme is such as ad0s1a.

The ad# indicates the hard drive. So whereas we have hda, hdb, they have ad0, ad1.

The s# is the slice number. Near as I can tell, a slice is a space of the hard drive that works similarly to a logical partition. That is, it is a container for other partitions.

The letter on the end is the actual partition (a la hda1). So within ad0s1, I could have a / partition, a /home partition, a /boot partition, and a swap partition. These would be ad0s1a, ad0s1b, etc.


If any BSD'er wants to prove me wrong, please do.

I believe you're quite correct Cabhan.

What Linux calls partitions , BSD calls them slices, so there are 4 slices for each
harddrive. So the term

ad1s3b

is saying .....the second partition in the third slice of the second IDE disk drive.

thanks guys, i get it now (i think)!

thanks again guys

/weed

I've actually found the FreeBSD naming system easier to follow.
Probably because it was the first one I studied.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cabhan

The s# is the slice number. Near as I can tell, a slice is a space of the hard drive that works similarly to a logical partition. That is, it is a container for other partitions.

The letter on the end is the actual partition (a la hda1). So within ad0s1, I could have a / partition, a /home partition, a /boot partition, and a swap partition. These would be ad0s1a, ad0s1b, etc.

---

The container-partition is named "extended" partition which contains the so-called "logical" partitions ;)

Some of the partition letters are reserved thought: IIRC ad0s1a will always be a /-partition, ad0s1b a swap-partition and ad0s1c a name to access the whole disk (like just /dev/hda in linux) regardless of which physical order they are in. ad0s1d, ad0s1e etc will be other partitions you've made on the slice.

I also find the BSD naming scheme nice and easy. The letters all stand for something:

ATA-Disk 0 Slice 1 partition b

For a SCSI-disk (or USB-memory stick etc) it's "da0" instead of "ad0" (iirc it's for SCSI Direct-Access).