Removing a drive

You can remove a drive from a cluster using the NetApp Element Management extension point. You might do this when reducing cluster capacity or preparing to replace drives nearing the end of their service life. Removing a drive takes the drive offline. Any data on the drive is removed and migrated to other drives in the cluster before the drive is removed from the cluster. The data migration to other active drives in the system can take a few minutes to an hour depending on capacity utilization and active I/O on the cluster.

About this task

When you remove a drive in a Failed state, the drive is not returned to Available or Active states. Instead, the drive is unavailable for use in the cluster.

Steps

Select NetApp Element Management > Cluster.
If two or more clusters are added, ensure that the cluster you intend to use for the task is selected in the navigation bar.
Select All from the drop-down list to view the complete list of drives.
Remove drives as follows:
1. Select the check box for each drive you want to remove.
2. Click Remove Drives.
Confirm the action.
Note: If there is not enough capacity to remove active drives before removing a node, an error message appears when you confirm the drive removal.