Unitek NetApp Training Blog

You simulator is now usable, but you may have noticed aggr0, which contained the root volume (/vol/vol0) is raid type RAID 0. This is a characteristic of the simulator as it comes from Netapp. However, just like a real Network Appliance storage system, it is possible to move the root volume. I would like to do this in the interest of making the simulator configuration closer to the real hardware.

If you go to the front page of filerview there is a selection “Documentation specific to the filer”. You should see something like this:

Select Frequently asked Question and notice the first item on the list:

We’re basically going to go through the steps listed in answer to the question, “What is the procedure to convert vol0 from RAID 0 to RAID 4?”

Do a “sysconfig –r” from your storage system’s command line. You should see this:

Look at aggr0. Notice it contains 3 data disks, v4.16, v4.17, and v4.18. There are no parity drives and the raid type is raid0. You can see the attributes for vol0 by entering the command “vol status vol0”

You should see this:

So the first thing we need to do is create an aggregate where we are going to place our new root volume. Use the following command:

aggr create aggr1 3

This will create an aggregate with three disks. Once it is complete, enter the following command:

sysconfig –r

You should see the following:

Now we have an aggregate protected by parity. By default, when creating an aggregate the system will use RAID DP. Notice the two parity disks. (Of course, these are virtual disks which exist as files on the host OS).

Create the volume which will become our new new root volume by entering the following command:

vol create newvol aggr1 350m

If you type “df –m” you can compare the size of the existing root volume and the new volume. The new volume must be at least as large as the existing root volume.

Next, place the new volume in a restricted state with the following command:

vol restrict newvol

Before we can use the vol copy command, the target volume must be in a restricted state. This is because vol copy does a sequential copy of all the blocks from the source volume to the target. The target volume must be inaccessible while this process is continuing. Enter the following command:

Vol copy start vol0 newvol.

You should see the following output:

The copy process will not take very long. Once it is complete we can bring the volume back online with the following command:

vol online newvol

Then use the following command to make this the new root volume.

vol options newvol root

You should see something like the following output:

Notice the messages regarding the mailbox disk. Data ONTAP uses the mailbox disk as an alternate heartbeat path for the cluster software. If the heartbeat from the cluster interconnect should cease, each head will check the mailbox disk to see if the other head is still leaving messages. If it is, then the head may be operating properly and a problem may exist in the cluster interconnect.

In a future column we will remove the old aggr0 aggregate and the raid0 disks.