topic Disk shelf firmware upgrade. in ONTAP Hardware

Disk shelf firmware upgrade.

s_harikantra — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:00:19 GMT

Hello

I am new to this netapp storage .

We are planning to upgrade FAS3020 ( ontap 7.2.4 ) shelf firmware to v38.

1) We want to know it need any down time ? how many hours ?

2) Do we need backup the data on the filer ? any chance of data loss ?

3)Any other things we need to condsider while upgrading the firmware.?

Please clarify my query since we are doing this first time .

Re: Disk shelf firmware upgrade.

BrendonHiggins — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:04:38 GMT

Hi welcome to the community.

You have said v38 so I am guessing you mean FC disks rather than SATA. I have upgraded many (120+) shelves in the last couple of years and never had any issues. You did not say that you had a HA pair or multipath so you will need to reboot the filer in order to upgrade the firmware.

It has been my exprience that the firmware upgrade takes 10 minutes per shelf. Sometimes it can be faster if you are lucky. The process works the way described by NetApp and is straight forward.

I have never created extra backups because of firmware upgrades but we do have a 2nd snapmirror destination site, so the risk is much lower than a single filer environment.

If you log into NetApp my autosupport you can get a health report for your filer. Also think about an BIOS, disk firmware, RLM upgrades. The health report will let you know what needs to be upgraded.

Hope it helps

Bren

Re: Disk shelf firmware upgrade.

jb2cool01 — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:58:57 GMT

Coincidence,

I've just checked all my devices for BIOS, Shelf and Disk FW this afternoon. As it goes mine was all up to date but i'd go along with Brendon. I don't take additional backups before i do this. I don't have HA systems but i do have my shelves multi-pathed. This means that shelf FW updates can be done without reboots.

the Netapp instructions supplied with the FW updates are very easy to follow.

More info on how your system is set up please.

Re: Disk shelf firmware upgrade.

s_harikantra — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:18:18 GMT

FAS3020 is culstred.

And its hosting VMs which are running the applications like blackbery. so while the fw upgrade do we need to stop the I/O to these hosts.

Do we need to shutdown these applications.

What will be roll back plan if we face any issue while upgrade ? can we roll back to older firmware?

Re: Disk shelf firmware upgrade.

balaji_tsys — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 04:32:23 GMT

Hello harikantra,

Have you performed the upgrade already.

There is no need to stop the I/O on these hosts .Same is meant by Brendon and jbcool1.

Keep a copy of the old shelf firmware handy in case you need to roll back.

In worst case if the ESH module goes unresponsive,still your disks will be available on the second path (I am assuming that all your shelves are multipathed).Call up the NetAPp support immediately then.

Regards

Balaji

Re: Disk shelf firmware upgrade.

senthilb — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:59:16 GMT

Hi Hari,

Make sure a backup plan ,

These files should be saved for all upgrade

Save all important config files like /etc/rc, /etc/hosts, nsswithc.conf etc
Save a perfstat o/p from both the nodes during regular business hours

Download softwares from NOW sites.

Go to http://now.netapp.com/NOW/download/tools/diskshelf/ and check the version you need to upgrade.

Lets take example if you are using DS14mkt ATFCX module search and find in latest firmware column,it takes to you a new downloading window and instructions to upgrade.

Setup a Net boot environment- just in case we have any issue with booting after upgarde

https://kb.netapp.com/support/index?page=content&id=1010220

Make sure all disk names in handy.

Disable scrubs

stop dedupe and verify the your able to login through console.

Verify system status by sysconfig -a

check CPu as less than 50% systat

Here you go:Shelf fw

Download latest copy to etc/shelf_fw dir...

set options shelf.fw..ndu.enable on

execute "storage download shelf" verify this by sysconfig -a

---

Disk fw upgrade.

Verify raid.background_disk_fw_update.enable on.

Move old disk_fw to new directory for back out.

Copy downloaded fw to etc/disk_fw on both,(clustered),monitor console for disk upgrade proces.

any Issues::

raid.background_disk_fw_update.enable off.

Fallback for disk,

disable raid.background_disk_fw_update.enable off

Manuvally do it by .

Execute >"disk_fw_update "hba-id.shelf-id.disk-number" " for each disk one by & one and node at a time (refer disk to be upgraded sheet for disk details)

Enable scrub dedup .

Dont do it yourself unless you are NCDA R NCIE.

This is for knowledge purpose and gives good idea,Commands and backout plan change according to versions filers(controllers) and modules.

All the best.Hope gives some idea.

Regards

Senthil Baskaran

Re: Disk shelf firmware upgrade.

alvarezdiego — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:31:11 GMT

I need you help.

I have a question.

I have to update the firmware of some shelf to IOM3

But in the Filer I have other models that do not have this firmware.

Once you copy the files to / etc / shelf_Fw and / etc / acpp_fw

I have to run the command set mode priv advanced

storage download shelf

or do I have to add another command