Removing disks from a storage system

How you remove a disk from your storage system depends how the disk is being used. By using the correct procedure, you can prevent unwanted AutoSupport notifications from being generated and ensure that the disk will function correctly if it is reused in another storage system.

Considerations

Remember that if you are removing a disk because it has failed or because it is producing excessive error messages, you should not use the disk again in this or any other storage system.

If you are removing a spare disk, and you might use the disk in a storage system running an earlier version of Data ONTAP, be sure you erase the disk ownership information from the disk before removing it from the storage system.

Note: You cannot reduce the number of disks in an aggregate by removing data disks. The only way to reduce the number of data disks in an aggregate is to copy the data and transfer it to a new aggregate that has fewer data disks.

Removing a failed disk
A disk that has already failed is no longer counted by Data ONTAP as a usable disk. You can just physically disconnect the disk from the disk shelf.
Removing a hot spare disk
Removing a hot spare disk requires you to notify Data ONTAP that you are removing the disk to avoid unwanted AutoSupport messages.
Removing a data disk
How you remove a data disk depends on whether you need to remove the disk immediately, or whether you can pre-fail the disk, which allows Data ONTAP to copy the disk before you remove it so the RAID group does not have to go into degraded mode.

Parent topic: Managing disks