topic Re: Head upgrade for old systems in ONTAP Hardware

Head upgrade for old systems

ORCUN_USTURALI — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 09:43:19 GMT

Hi to all

havent done any head upgrade before, trying to learn some new stuff.

Customer wants to head upgrade their FAS8020 HA pair to 1 controller FAS8060 .

The existing FAS8020 is working as snapmirror destination data,

Is this possible to replace an HA pair to only single controller cluster?

The FAS820 is 9.8p17version (9.8 is the latest for this platfrom)

thanks everyone

Re: Head upgrade for old systems

SpindleNinja — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 17:40:23 GMT

My initial reaction is "Technically maybe?" There is a process to move from 1 to 2. but I haven't ever seen an official one that's 2 to 1.

Few thoughts on it though -
All of these platforms are no longer supportable or under support. So if you run into issues you could end up stuck and unable to move forward.
An 8060 controller cannot fit into a 8020 chassis and vice versa.
I can't think of a way that would allow the ARL method that would allow for 2 nodes to go to one, so it would be a hard down.

Re: Head upgrade for old systems

ORCUN_USTURALI — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 06:50:32 GMT

Thanks SpindleNinja for your thougts.

we discussed with the customer, and giveup for the ARL process.

Second way to achive this? I am not sure what wiill be the result, if somenone can advise ,it will be good

Since the Fas8020 is a snapmirror destination system,I will stop the snapmirrors, release all disks ownership in Fas8020 ,and release them.

Later on ,i will setup Fas8060 with the same version of the Fas8020 to some new disks, and later on will attach all the disks that previously Fas8020 had been using. And then assign them to Fas8060,

What will be the result?

Will the old data still be available on Fas8060 by the end of this operation?

thanks

Re: Head upgrade for old systems

SpindleNinja — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:25:05 GMT

Will the old data still be available on Fas8060 by the end of this operation?

It might? but as I've not ever tried this, nor have known someone to do it, I'm unable to confirm.

Re: Head upgrade for old systems

ORCUN_USTURALI — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:43:37 GMT

I am not sure , its an idea at the moment.I am trying to learn if its possible ?

🙂