What is the format.dat entry for drive X?

What is the format.dat entry for drive X?

The answer can vary according to what OS you are running, the
architecture of your machine or the type of SCSI/SMD/IPI controller you
are using. Opinions also vary on how to format once you have all the
information you need. If you are buying a Sun supported drive, you will
likely find an entry for it in "/etc/format.dat". On third party
drives, you should inquire with the vendor you bought it from. If you
are on your own, contact the manufacturer, or try to get hold of the
manufacturer's OEM manual for your drive model. You might be able to
derive enough information from the manual to make up your own entry.

Most drive manufacturers provide drive specifications from their web
sites. Try these:

http://www.seagate.com (Seagate, Connor, Imprimis, CDC)
http://www.fujitsu.com/products/support.html (Fujitsu)
http://www.maxtor.com (Maxtor, Quantum, Micropolis)
http://www.samsungelectronics.com (Samsung)
http://www.storage.ibm.com (IBM)
http://www.westerndigital.com (Western Digital)

It is also possible to contact drive manufacturers by telephone.
Some relevant numbers:

Fujitsu USA 800-626-4686
408-432-1300
Fujitsu FAXLINE 408-428-0456
Fujitsu Canada 416-602-5454
800-263-7091
Maxtor USA 800-2MA-XTOR
Maxtor FAXBACK 303-678-2618
Seagate USA 800-468-3472
405-936-1200
Seagate FAX 408-438-8137
Seagate FAXBACK 408-438-2620

A format.dat file containing entries submitted by various people is
available for anonymous ftp at
ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/format.dat
It is currently maintained by John DiMarco (jdd@cs.toronto.edu). New
entries are welcome; mail them to sunmanagers-format@sunmanagers.org

Note: do not post a format.dat request to the list or to the
comp.sys.sun.admin newsgroup unless you have exhausted all these avenues.

For SCSI disks on modern suns, a format.dat entry can be auto-generated
using John DiMarco's scsiinfo program, available at
ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/scsiinfo/. It will query the disk directly,
and generate an appropriate format.dat entry

Tips for rolling your own format.dat:

- For SCSI disks, any combination of cylinders, heads, and sectors that
does not add up to more than the rated formatted capacity of the drive
will normally work. A grossly different geometry may result in some
slight performance degradation, but it should still work. The SCSI protocol
hides most of the drive details from the host, and hence the host need not
know much about the drive to format or use it.


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