Microsoft KB Archive/42629

PRB: Disk Init: Cannot Create New Device with vdevno=10 ID Number: Q42629

1.00 1.10 1.11 4.20 OS/2

Summary:

SYMPTOMS Disk init will fail if you try to create a device by setting vdevno=10:

disk init name = 'log_device', physname = &quot;c:\sql\data\morelogs.dat&quot;, size = 2048, vdevno = 10

Message number is 5146. CAUSE With versions of SQL Server earlier than version 4.2, there is a limit of 10 devices, including the master, but not including the dump devices.

You can add 9 of your own devices (dump devices do not count here) for a total of 10 “data” devices.

RESOLUTION To set up these devices more efficiently, you can create the devices with a larger amount of storage per device. For example, instead of creating a 2 MB device, create a device with 10 MB (or larger if possible). A single device can be as large as the free space on the computer.

More Information:

The maximum limit of devices for SQL Server version 4.2 has been increased to 256, although the practical limit is dependent on the number of threads supported by the version of OS/2 and the number of threads being used by other SQL Server configuration values. For OS/2 1.3, the limit is typically around 48. See the “Microsoft SQL Server System Administrator’s Guide” (page 34 for version 4.2) for more information. Also, be aware that with version 4.2, you must use “sp_configure devices” to set the configured limit higher if you are already using as many devices that have been configured. Note that this setting uses memory even if the disks have not yet been initialized, so do not set it arbitrarily high. Set it only as high as needed.

Additional reference words: 1.00 1.10 1.11 4.20