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It is possible to set up a variety of configurations for the root (/) file system and other critical file systems that are used by the operating system (such as /usr), and for the swap area.
Using the /usr file system as an example, the following cases are possible:
/usr is a directory under / and no separate partition is allocated for it. In this case, /usr becomes part of the rootvol volume when the root disk is encapsulated and put under Veritas Volume Manager control.
/usr is on a separate partition from the root partition on the root disk. In this case, a separate volume is created for the usr partition when the root disk is encapsulated.
/usr is on a disk other than the root disk. In this case, a volume is created for the usr partition only if you use VxVM to encapsulate the disk. Note that encapsulating the root disk and having mirrors of the root volume is ineffective in maintaining the availability of your system if the separate usr partition becomes inaccessible for any reason. For maximum availability of the system, it is recommended that you encapsulate both the root disk and any other disks that contain other critical file systems, and create mirrors for these volumes and for the swap area.
The rootvol volume must exist in the boot disk group.
There are other restrictions on the configuration of rootvol and usr volumes.
See the Veritas Storage Foundation Administrator's Guide.
VxVM allows you to put swap partitions on any disk; it does not need an initial swap area during early phases of the boot process. However, it is possible to have the swap partition on a partition not located on the root disk. In such cases, you are advised to encapsulate that disk and create mirrors for the swap volume. If you do not do this, damage to the swap partition eventually causes the system to crash. It may be possible to boot the system, but having mirrors for the swapvol volume prevents system failures.