Using ODS-5 disks

[Shael Richmond]

We currently still use ODS-2 for most of our disks (except Oracle). But since the volume sizes have been getting bigger we have been losing disk space because of the large cluster size. I'm getting ready to move from a RA10000 to a new MSA1000 so I was considering switching most of the disks to ODS-5. Has anyone seen problems with ODS-5 especially if they not using the ODS-5 features? Also
if I initialize a disk as ODS-5 can I do an image restore from an ODS-2 disk(w/NOINIT) or do I have to restore as an ODS-2 and convert after?

Really any feedback about use of ODS-5 disks would be appreciated.

[David B Sneddon · Accepted solution]

Shael,

We have been using ODS-5 disks for a while
now and have seen no problems.
Yes you can initialize a disk as ODS-5 and then
restore an image backup of an ODS-2 disk (with
/NOINIT).
The only "issue" we have seen is in development
when you set your parse style to extended and
forget to set it back to traditional -- some
commands don't work as expected. We have seen
NO problems in our production environments.

Regards
Dave

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hi,

only two minor issues.

If you use tar to unpack archives on ODS-5 disks it will recreate the files with the original names (e.g. several dots) and other applications might not be prepared to handle this. Use -o resp /ODS2 to force conversion to ODS2 like names.

Also I seem to remember that older versions of Zip had problems creating archives using [...] syntax for the input files on ODS-5 disks.

Greetings, Martin

[Uwe Zessin]

I thought that the large bitmap feature is available on ODS-2, too.

[Antoniov.]

We are using mixed environment without problems.
Pathwork works better.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Shael Richmond]

I went back and reread the article that HP had sent me and it does say I can use smaller cluster size on ODS-2 disks.

Of course that makes the decision harder since I can stay with ODS-2. Right now I'm leaning towards going to ODS-5 since there doesn't seem to be a lot of issues. That way I prepared as products require ODS-5 like Oracle.

[Uwe Zessin]

You can always convert later on - there is even a 'RENAME' utility for files created by Pathworks (it works well and fast). If I remember correctly, then you need to do a private mount before you can change to ODS-5.

That can be a problem if your system disk is on a fibre channel attached disk. I have seen version conflicts were I could not mount an MSA1000-provided disk while I had booted from CD-ROM - I needed a patched-up VMS version on a local SCSI disk. Keep this in mind for restores, too.

[Jan van den Ende]

Shael,

If you would so wish, there is no issue at all in staying with ODS-2.
Ever since VMS 7.2 we initialized all our new disks ODS-2 with clustersize=4, gradually phasing out old, smaller disks.
Not a single problem with that.

Jan

[Jim Strehlow]

Avoid ODS-5 disks if you have software that is incompatible with ODS-5 disks.
Some old version of a deframenting product that does not support ODS-5 disks could be a problem.
You might have software that could break when it can not handle mixed-case filenames or deep sub-directory trees.

I have had no problems with Oracle, vmszip, or other utility programs on OpenVMS v7.2-1 through v7.3-1

Jim, Alameda, CA, USA

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hi,

one more thing, since Advanced Server was mentioned. At least with a bit older versions of AS while it was recommended to have the data disks on ODS-5 the application itself should reside on an ODS-2 disk. Not sure if this is still true with the lates 7.3A ECO3, I suggest to check the release notes.

Greetings, Martin