How to find Solaris device name of NTFS partition on external USB hard drive HDD storage

Instead of running GParted as described in my post on Oracle Solaris 11.3 64-bit installation steps, here is a quicker command-line way to identify the device name corresponding to a NTFS partition on an external USB hard drive connected to a Oracle Solaris 11.3 system.

Unlike my previous post that applies to OpenIndiana, this post applies to true Oracle Solaris 11.3 64 bit.

STEP 1 - Use rmformat and fdisk to identify the device name for the NTFS partition

$ rmformat -l

Looking for devices...

     1. Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0p0

        Physical Node: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1,1/ide@0/sd@1,0

        Connected Device: VBOX     CD-ROM           1.0

        Device Type: <Unknown>

        Bus: IDE

        Size: <Unknown>

        Label: <Unknown>

        Access permissions: <Unknown>

     2. Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0p0

        Physical Node: /pci@0,0/pci106b,3f@6/storage@1/disk@0,0

        Connected Device: WD       My Book 1110     1030

        Device Type: Removable

        Bus: USB

        Size: 1430.1 GB

        Label: <Unknown>

        Access permissions: <Unknown>

     3. Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c2t0d1p0

        Physical Node: /pci@0,0/pci106b,3f@6/storage@1/disk@0,1

        Connected Device: WD       Virtual CD 1110  1030

        Device Type: CD Reader

        Bus: USB

        Size: 668.0 MB

        Label: <None>

        Access permissions: <Unknown>

$ sudo fdisk /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0p0

Password:

             Total disk size is 60771 cylinders

             Cylinder size is 48195 (512 byte) blocks

                                               Cylinders

      Partition   Status    Type          Start   End   Length    %

      =========   ======    ============  =====   ===   ======   ===

          1                 IFS: NTFS         0  60771    60772    100

SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

   1. Create a partition

   2. Specify the active partition

   3. Delete a partition

   4. Change between Solaris and Solaris2 Partition IDs

   5. Edit/View extended partitions

   6. Exit (update disk configuration and exit)

   7. Cancel (exit without updating disk configuration)

Enter Selection: 7

This tells us the NTFS partition is the first partition on raw device /dev/rdsk/c2t0d0p0. Therefore, the device name for our NTFS partition will be disk partition /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p1 (without the "r" for raw device under /dev).

STEP 2 - Mount it!

$ mkdir /media/USB-Storage
$ sudo /usr/bin/lowntfs-3g -o uid=21,gid=21 /dev/dsk/c2t0d0p1 /media/USB-Storage/

And presto, we can now see the NTFS partition files at /media/USB-Storage.

Installing ntfs-3g on Solaris without introducing instability and kernel panics is tricky. I ended up building ntfs-3g from sources to get a rock-solid stable Oracle Solaris 11.3 server with NTFS-3g; I have documented my approach in a separate post in the section Install the Tools to Mount NTFS Volume: FUSE and NTFS-3G for Solaris 11.