Creating database devices

This topic describes how to create logical database devices that map to your physical storage media. Before creating a new device, consider the following:

When you create a database or dump device, Adaptive Server adds a row to the sysdevices table in the master database. Therefore, before creating a new device, you should back up the master database.
Before creating a new database or dump device, make sure you have enough disk space on the physical device.
On UNIX hosts, be sure that the “sybase” operating system account has write access on the physical device.
After you create a new database or dump device, back up the master database again.

The available dump devices are shown in the drop-down list.

Creating a database device

Select the Database Devices folder.
Select File | New | Database Device.

The Database Device Creation wizard asks for the information shown in Table 8-1.

**Table 8-1: Inputs to Database Device Creation wizard**
Input	Description
Name	Logical name for the new database device.
Pathname of device	Enter the full pathname of the physical device to which to map the logical name. On a UNIX host, this can be the name of a raw partition or operating system disk file.
Device number	Sybase Central provides the next available sequential number. You can enter any unused device number from 1 through 1 less than the value of the devices configuration variable.
Size	The device size in megabytes if your physical device is a file. If the physical device is a raw partition, the size of the partition.
Starting address	Default: 0
Mirror device	Specify if you want to mirror the device.
Pathname for mirror device	The physical name of the mirror device.

Shortcut

Select the Database Devices folder. In the right pane, double-click the Add Database Device icon.