Shelf model DS4486 MSATA disks in EOS + ONTAP upgrade for FAS9000

[jessango]

We need to perform an ONTAP upgrade and we have several broken disks that are in EOS. It’s clear that we cannot have broken disks before performing the upgrade. The idea is to pull the disks off or remove them from the shelves. The shelf model is DS4486 and it has 24 carriers with 2 disks each. We have verified that all the broken disks are grouped by carrier, and in every carrier we have a failed disk and an evacuated disk. Before pulling out the carriers we will unassign the failed disks.

As we will remove the entire carriers with broken disks we would like to know if we do need to pull back the empty carrier (after removing the disks) for cooling reasons or for any other reason. Or can we have an operating shelf with some empty bays without any cover?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[SpindleNinja · Accepted solution]

There typically needs to be something in the shelf to close the opening for cooling/emf reasons.  Looking at the caddy FRU you can't really remove one (or both)  disk and put the other one back in, easily anyway.    I've heard of people just leaving the disk caddy in the slot enough just to it's not making a connection with the backplane though.  

And what version are you going to?  Did you verify the shelf is  

I'd also consider decommissioning the EOL shelves as well.  

[jessango]

We're upgrading to 9.11.1P8 and decommissioning shelves is planned but still moving data outside those disks.

We will remove both disks from the caddy and put it back into the shelf.