A physical disk is the basic storage device (media) where the data is ultimately stored. You can access the data on a physical disk by using a device name to locate the disk. The physical disk device name varies with the computer system you use. Not all parameters are used on all systems.

Typical device names are of the form c#t#d#s#, where c# specifies the controller, t# specifies the target ID, d# specifies the disk, and s# specifies the partition or slice. For example, device name c0t0d0s2 is the entire hard disk connected to controller number 0 in the system, with a target ID of 0, and physical disk number 0.

Figure: Physical disk example shows how a physical disk and device name (devname) are illustrated in this document.

VxVM writes identification information on physical disks under VxVM control (VM disks). VxVM disks can be identified even after physical disk disconnection or system outages. VxVM can then re-form disk groups and logical objects to provide failure detection and to speed system recovery.