topic Re: Convert data disk as a spare disk in ONTAP Discussions

Convert data disk as a spare disk

Daniel — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 23:12:11 GMT

The system is a FAS2220 with 12 SATA disks. 10 of them are data-disks, one parity and one dparity. For space-purposes we used all the spares as data-disk. Data ONTAP is 8.1.4P8 7-Mode. There is only the root-volume and the root-aggregate left which contains all 12 disks. Anything else was deleted.

As we dont want want to use the filer as a backup-system anymore, we like to have two spare-disks available again. The documented way to "convert" a data-disk into a spare-disk is to destroy the aggregate in which the are used, but I cannot remove/destroy the aggregate to build a new one, as it is the root-aggregat.

My question is if there is any way to change the type of two of a data-disk to a spare-disk.

Thanks in advandce!

Re: Convert data disk as a spare disk

aborzenkov — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:58:25 GMT

No. You cannot remove disks from aggregate. You have to destroy the whole aggregate. If you have data (volumes) on it, you need to relocate them to another aggregate.

If the only volume left is the root one you can simply reinitialize this filer from special boot menu. It will create 3 disks RAID_DP aggregate and leave all other disks as spare.

Re: Convert data disk as a spare disk

Daniel — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 10:20:04 GMT

Seems to address my issue. Thanks!

Re: Convert data disk as a spare disk

siddarajugc — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 12:29:57 GMT

Hi,

One possible way is to convert raid type from RAID_DP to RAID_4 .

only one Disk will be released as spare disk.

But NetApp will not recommend to have RAID4 in root volume.

regards

siddaraju