Other The /dev/ad4 > /dev/ada? link...

bjs

bjs

I know, dumb question... What is the purpose of the above link in /dev? I noticed it while working on one of the hard drives out of my FreeNAS 7.2 box crashed, in a FreeBSD 9.3 Live CD box... I also saw it referenced during boot that it was known as ad4... In both boxes it's shows as /dev/ad4 and doesn't matter if it's the only drive or one of many... How does that drive always remember it was /dev/ad4 even though being installed in different FreeBSD based systems? Is this a legacy thing? Can it be changed?
 
Disable the creation of the links with this loader.conf(5) setting:

Code: 
kern.cam.ada.legacy_aliases=0

It is in fact a legacy compatibility feature for newer versions of FreeBSD where all SATA and PATA disks are named ada* and the older names ad* are created as links. The system does not really remember what the number in the ad* name was but it is autogenerated depending on how many disk controllers are in the system and on which controller/channel/port the disk is connected to.
 
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