A200 Factory reset

[SAOhioDatacenter]

I'm installing a new AFF A200 SAN and having trouble and to the point that I'm thinking just resetting it and starting over it a faster soltuion that trying to get what's configured working.

There's no data on it, just the initial magement port config, and some of the cluster set up (cluster build, and 1 node joined).

Is there a way to reset the A200 and start again?

Thanks!

[michael_england · Accepted solution]

The way I've used to fully reset a system is to interrupt the boot process and use option (4) Clean configuration and initalize all disks.  There are two opportunities to press Ctrl-C, the first one will halt the boot entirely, wait for the second one for a special boot menu.  Then option 4.

This can take quite a while as it zeros out all drives.  If they're small it'll be fast but if you've got large SATA drives it can take a while.  You will still keep any SP IP address information but everything else will get removed and put you back to square one.

[billyd]

I agree with the option 4 for the clean configuration. With the A200 being an All-Flash system, the disk zeroing process will be very fast. Expect the process to be 10-30 minutes, depending on drive size.

[AlexDawson]

As others have posted, the serial/usb console and option 4 (run on both nodes) will totally reset it, and since it is all flash, it will be quick.

Top of my head, here's what you'd likely want from a simple A200 setup:

- Create one data aggregate per node (active/active), or reassign all partitions to one node and make a single large data aggregate (active/passive), ensuring optimum RAID group size/RAID type

- Apply licenses (if not applied in factory)

- Create subnets for data service and device management

- Create SVMs for data service

- Create LIFs for data access (one per node per SVM for SAN, one per SVM for NAS)

- Create volumes/LUNs

- Setup export-policy/AD connection/SAN igroups for connectivity

- Verify autosupport/ActiveIQ functionality

- Upgrade ONTAP to desired release

Each of these can be undone and redone pretty easily without resetting the system, with the possible exception of aggregate setup. Resetting is a valid option, but I just want you to know it isn't the only option - you can fix/change ONTAP setup pretty easily and safely

[SAOhioDatacenter]

Thank you everyone for your input - the option 4 reset got me back to where I could start and again and I was able to compete the entire setup and config successfully this time.