new shelves

Procedure for adding a new shelf to a NetApp Filer

Odds are eventually you will be adding a filer shelf that is not new, merely new-to-you. In this case, the shelf usually came from another location, where it sat on another filer, and had its own volumes and content.

Odds are you don't want any of this content.

Here's how you can add your new shelf with a minimum of fuss.

• your backups are good, right? just asking.
• make boot floppies for your NetApp appliance
• assign the new shelf the shelf ID it will use when it is eventually all connected. This will act as an additional safety against accidents
• disconnect your existing shelves from your NetApp, and connect only the new shelf
• boot from floppies, pressing Ctrl-C when advised to get the extra functionality menu
• select Zero all disks (make doubly sure that you've only got the correct shelf connected, I usually power off the shelves I want to protect as a safety measure)
• watch it zero all disks (34Gb disks take about 30 minutes to zero)
• Don't reconnect your older shelves yet
• boot the filer from the new shelf (zeroing installs an OS and a small vol0 to get you going) and select the extra functionality menu again.
• this time select Maintenance Boot
• offline the new vol0: vol offline vol0 (it will say are you sure, yes you are)
• destroy the new vol0: vol destroy vol0 (again it will ask you if you are sure)
• powerdown and reconnect all the shelves
• boot up and you should be able to see all the new disks as spares to do with as you like.