My reading of the literature tells me that VM release 6 does NOT do away with minidisks. The Shared File System facility is an "optional extra." Of more concern is the fact that I hear that there will be NO VM/SP HPO in release 6. So if you run a preferred guest (e.g. MVS) you will need XA. Which in turn does not support 3370's. Sigh. Let's, however, not continue to discuss THIS topic on THIS list.