How to choose the location of the spare disc

[tobidesouza]

Hello there,

We have expanded our single controller FAS2554 NetApp with a Shelf. Pro Shelf is a spare disk provided. But when we have added the disks to the aggregate, both of them are placed in a shelf. Is this normal or how to make it that each spare disk is in a diffrent  shelf. Probably this is no longer possible to do, but have a second Netapp to extend we would gladly avoid this if possible.

kind regards,

Tobi

[AlexDawson · Accepted solution]

On a single controller system, the location of the spares doesn't matter at all, so when disks are added to an aggregate, it doesn't try to prevent this. 

You can manually place them by first connecting to the system's CLI, turning off auto-assign of disks or shelves, then plugging the new shelf in, then running the command to add new disks to the aggregate with the CLI, manually specifying which disks to use, then turning auto-assign back on.

Exact commands depend on ontap version and clustered ontap or 7 mode.

If you wish to change the existing system, disk movement is supported - you can turn the system off and swap disk locations, or you can use the "disk replace" command to replace an aggregate disk with a spare, then zero the now-spare, former aggregate disk.