Adding new SATA-disks to OpenSolaris is easy and it’s done with cfgadm command line util if the disk is in a normal ACHI SATA controller.  I have also an LSI SAS/SATA controller SAS3081E-R which uses its own utils. 

Hotpluging disk into normal ACHI SATA controller.

First add the new disk to the system and power it on (a good sata backplane is a must) and then type cfgadm to list all disks in the system:

garo@sonas:~# cfgadm
Ap_Id                          Type         Receptacle   Occupant     Condition
c3                             scsi-bus     connected    configured   unknown
pcie20                         unknown/hp   connected    configured   ok
sata4/0::dsk/c5t0d0            disk         connected    configured   ok
sata4/1                        disk         connected    unconfigured unknown
sata4/2                        sata-port    empty        unconfigured ok

This shows that disk sata4/1 is a new disk which have been added but is not yet configured. Type

garo@sonas:~# cfgadm -c configure sata4/1

Now the disks are configured. Typing cfgadm again shows that they have been configured as disks c5t0d0 and c5t1d0. They’re now ready to use in zpools.

Hotswapping disks in LSI SAS/SATA controller

I have also an LSI Logic SAS3081E-R 8-port (i:2xSFF8087) SAS PCI-e x4 SATA controller which can be used with Solaris default drivers, but it should be used with its own drivers (i used the Solaris 10 x86 drivers). After the drivers are installed you can use the lsiutil command line tool.

garo@sonas:~# lsiutil
LSI Logic MPT Configuration Utility, Version 1.61, September 18, 2008

1 MPT Port found

     Port Name         Chip Vendor/Type/Rev    MPT Rev  Firmware Rev  IOC
 1.  mpt0              LSI Logic SAS1068E B3     105      01170200     0

Select a device:  [1-1 or 0 to quit]

First select your controller (I have just one controller, so I’ll select 1). Then you can type 16 to Display attached devices, or 8 to scan for new devices. The driver will automaticly scan for new disks once a while (at least it seems so), so the disk might just pop up available to be used with zpool without you doing anything for it.

Main menu, select an option:  [1-99 or e/p/w or 0 to quit] 8

SAS1068E's links are 1.5 G, 1.5 G, 1.5 G, 1.5 G, 1.5 G, 1.5 G, 1.5 G, 1.5 G

 B___T___L  Type       Vendor   Product          Rev      SASAddress     PhyNum
 0   0   0  Disk       ATA      ST31000340AS     SD15  09221b066c554c66     5
 0   1   0  Disk       ATA      ST31000340AS     SD15  09221b066b7f676a     0
 0   2   0  Disk       ATA      ST31000340AS     SD15  09221b0669794a5d     1
 0   3   0  Disk       ATA      ST31000340AS     SD15  09221b066b7f4e6a     2
 0   4   0  Disk       ATA      ST31000340AS     SD15  09221b066b7f5b6d     3
 0   5   0  Disk       ATA      ST31000340AS     SD15  09221b066a6c6068     4
 0   6   0  Disk       ATA      ST3750330AS      SD15  0e221f04756c7148     6
 0   7   0  Disk       ATA      ST3750330AS      SD15  0e221f04758d7f40     7