topic Re: Add external LUN and Snapmirror to another NetApp System in ONTAP Discussions

Add external LUN and Snapmirror to another NetApp System

DAVINCI91 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 05:49:45 GMT

Hello,

think about an external storage sytem which you want to migrate with NetApp tools.

I got several LUNs in an external storage system. Now I map that LUNs to the NetApp

and use a SnapMirror to migrate them to another NetApp system. Is that possible?

It´s just an idea!

What do you think about that?

Greetings, Chris

Re: Add external LUN and Snapmirror to another NetApp System

billshaffer — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:31:59 GMT

No. You can't map a lun with an existing file system to NetApp and expect to read the data. NetApp will see it as an array lun, and will put it in the spare pool (possibly overwriting some of the data on the lun in the process).

Bill

Re: Add external LUN and Snapmirror to another NetApp System

DAVINCI91 — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:36:05 GMT

Hi Bill,

thanks for your response! Any other idea how to handle on that?

Re: Add external LUN and Snapmirror to another NetApp System

billshaffer — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:44:03 GMT

It'd have to be a host-side migration. Create the lun on your target NetApp system, present it up to the client, migrate the data, then cutover. If it's just filesystem data, something like rsync or robocopy do a good job of minimizing downtime. If you're using LVM on the client you can mirror the disks, then remove the old lun from the mirror for a seamless migration.

There are appliances out there that would handle the migration, but (in my opinion) they're expensive and out of scope for most migration needs.

Bill

Re: Add external LUN and Snapmirror to another NetApp System

DAVINCI91 — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 20:49:33 GMT

Thanks. You are right ... I will think about some possibilities to migrate.

Greetings, Chris