Adaptive Server, SQL Anywhere and SAP Sybase IQ use different models for managing devices and allocating disk space initially and later, reflecting the different uses for the products.
In Adaptive Server, you allocate space in database devices initially using DISK INIT and then create a database on one or more database devices. You can add more space using ALTER DATABASE or automatically, using thresholds.
In SAP Sybase IQ, you initially allocate space by listing raw devices in the CREATE DATABASE statement. You can add more space manually using CREATE DBSPACE. Although you cannot add space automatically, you can create events to warn the DBA before space is actually needed. SAP Sybase IQ can also use file system space. SAP Sybase IQ does not support Transact-SQL DISK statements, such as DISK INIT, DISK MIRROR, DISK REFIT, DISK REINIT, DISK REMIRROR, and DISK UNMIRROR.
SQL Anywhere is similar to SAP Sybase IQ, except that the initial CREATE DATABASE statement takes a single file system file instead of a list of raw devices. SQL Anywhere lets you initialize its databases using a command utility named dbinit. SAP Sybase IQ provides an expanded version of this utility called iqinit for initializing SAP Sybase IQ databases.