Destroy an aggregate and add its disks to another aggregate

JohnChen — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 05:20:27 GMT

My environment is Ontap cluster 8.2.1P1, cDot Mode, FAS3220.

Currently I have an aggregate called aggr3 with 18 disks and only one raid group for this aggregate.

I have another aggregate called aggr4 and it has two raid group with 22 disks.

All the disk are the same type and model - SAS, 900GB, 10k

However, aggr3 disks are owned by controller 2 and the aggr4 disks are owned by controller 1.

I want to destroy the aggr3 and add 18 disks + 2 spare disks to aggr4 for the third raid group.

The third raid group on aggr4 has only 20 disk.

Therefore,

Raid group 1 on aggr4 - has 22 disks

Raid group 2 on aggr4 - has 22 disks

Raid group 3 on aggr4 - has 20 disks

Here is my steps and procedure.

1.Move all the VOL from aggr3 to aggr4 and make sure no VOL and LUN on aggr3.

2.offline the aggr3 and then Destroy aggr3.

3.zeroed disks that were from aggr3.

4.reassign disks to controller1 to prepare for aggr4.

5.After assign the disks, add those 20 disks to aggr4 for third raid group.

Are those steps and procedure good enough?

Do I need to run the reallocate?

Is there any documentaton for me to follow for what I plan to do?

Re: Destroy an aggregate and add its disks to another aggregate

JSHACHER11 — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 22:55:01 GMT

the plan should work

reallocation is recommended. With 20 disks added though, WAFL should be able to deal with optimizing the layout fairly quickly

A few things to consider:

- make sure you have enough space in aggr4 to accommodate the volumes from aggr3

- make sure that the root volume is not in aggr3

- performance-wise, make sure that the destination node can cope with the new workload (CPU, memory,..)

BTW, have you considered moving (and keeping) aggr3 to the other node using ARL (Aggregate Relocate)?