Netapp Clustered Ontap Hot Disk Shelf Removal

How to Hot Remove a Netapp C-Mode Disk Shelf

During this demo we will use the following name:

• VMLABCLUSTER – the Netapp C-Mode Cluster Name
• Node1 and Node2 – the names of a Netapp C-Mode HA Pair
• Aggr1 – the name of the Aggregate we will be deleting
• Disk Shelf 10 – the Disk Shelf ID that we wish to remove
• Disk Shelf 9 – The Disk Shelf ID directly before Shelf 10 in the same SAS loop

Netapp Hot Removing a Disk Shelf Requirements & Procedure

First requirement to be able to hot remove a disk shelf from a Netapp C-Mode system currently in production is that it is running Data Ontap 8.2.1 or later.

The system must be running multi-path HA – To check this you can type in

• VMLABCLUSTER::> node run Node1 sysconfig (look for the line at the top that says: System Storage Configuration – Multi-Path HA)

Ensure there are no volumes on the aggregate you wish to delete, or that you don’t have any data you need to keep. To delete the aggregate you type:

• VMLABCLUSTER::> aggr offline -aggregate Aggr1
• VMLABCLUSTER::> aggr delete -aggregate Aggr1

Once all aggregates have been removed from the disk shelf we then need to unassign all the disks. To do this we type in:

• VMLABCLUSTER::> disk removeowner -disk Node1:0a.10.0
• VMLABCLUSTER::> disk removeowner -disk Node1:0a.10.1 (etc all the way to 23 if it is a full 24 disk  capacity shelf

Verify all disks belonging to the shelf you wish to remove are set to unassigned:

• storage disk show -shelf 10 (you should not see anything in the aggregate except – and under type it should display unassigned)

Check that your SAS and ACP cables are the correct lengths once you unplug the shelf

Unplug the SAS cables from the A module and re-cable to shelf 9. Wait 1 minute (sometimes it can take 2 minutes) and check to make sure the A path to the disk shelf has been removed from the sytem by typing:

• VMLABCLUSTER::> node run Node1 storage show disk -p (Under Primary or Secondary Port columns you should not see A)

Once the A path has been removed you can then move onto the B path, unplug the SAS cables and re-cable to shelf 9. Wait 1 minute (sometimes it can take 2 minutes) then run the command:

• VMLABCLUSTER::> node run Node1 storage show disk -p (The disk from the disk shelf ID 10 should all be removed)

Now we can unplug the ACP cables and plug them into shelf 9. We can then verify the ACP connectivity by typing:

• VMLABCLUSTER::> node run Node1 storage show acp (We should see Full Connectivity. It may take a few minutes for Shelf 10 to disappear from the ACP table)

Lastly power off the disk shelf

The exact procedure from Netapp can be found in the link below. The procedure above is my interpretation and the full list of commands I use in a Netapp C-Mode 8.2.1 or later system to hot remove a disk shelf

Hot-removing disk shelves in system running Data Ontap 8.2.1 or later

If you have any technical questions about this tutorial or any other tutorials on this site, please open a new thread in the forums and the community will be able to help you out.

Disclaimer:
All the tutorials included on this site are performed in a lab environment to simulate a real world production scenario. As everything is done to provide the most accurate steps to date, we take no responsibility if you implement any of these steps in a production environment.