Disk zeroing without system install (root volume)?

[igor]

Hello!

I've to zero 12 disks before migrating them to a production system which already has DataONTAP installed.

I've a FAS2020 which I can use for zeroing, but whenever I go to Maintenance Menu and choose either:

     (4)  Initialize owned disks

     (4a) Same as option 4, but create a flexible root volume.

- after the process completes I'm always left with 9 spare disks, and 3 disks bunched up into aggr0 aggregate with DataONTAP installed on it.

My questions is this: Is it possible to zero all disks without the storage system performing any tasks on them? To simply wipe them clean so I can immediatelly use them in the new system?

Cheers,

Igor

[aborzenkov]

Why exactly would you want to zero them? You can just put them in another system, destroy whatever aggregate will be assembled and zero spares there. The only slightly annoying effect is support call back (depending on your support agreement details) after they see asups for “broken” aggregates.

[igor]

Hello,

To save time, make a clean aggregate, avoid the ASUP hassle and - make note of it for future use. 🙂

[AdvUniMD]

Often people simply don't *have* a second system to put the disk into. And even if they do have one, it is normally a production system where you can attach and zero the disks, but not remove them while the system is running (it works but it's not supported)

There once was a hidden boot prompt menu option to do this ("(44/7) - Intialize all disks as SPARE" -- the strings are still visible inside the kernel binary) but it has long been disabled/removed... I couldn't get it to work at all

-Michael

[aborzenkov]

Often people simply don't *have* a second system to put the disk into.  And even if they do have one, it is normally a production system where  you can attach and zero the disks, but not remove them while the system  is running

Yes, but the question was "how to zero disks before putting them in production system". I just observed that one could zero disks after putting them in production system

[mitchells]

If you boot into maintenance mode from the special boot options, can you destroy the aggr from there?

[igor]

Aggr command is available, yes. You can also do it when disks are transfered to a production system, you'd have 9 spare disks which you can use right away and 3 disks that should be zeroed after aggr destroy.  But I was hoping to skip that step somehow... 🙂  It's OK, I've a shelf now which I can use to install DOT and than I'll assign all the 12 disks to that controller and zero the disks from there.

Too bad that "(44/7) - Intialize all disks as SPARE" option is not available. It'd be so much easier.

Cheers!