Procedure: Removing a control enclosure from a system

If needed, you can completely remove a control enclosure from a system. When the procedure is finished, no data is retained on the control enclosure. The control enclosure operates like a new installation and can then be added again to another system.

About this task

This procedure is not used as part of any recovery action.
Attention:
  • If the system contains only one control enclosure, the system is destroyed when the control enclosure is removed. Do not start this procedure unless you are certain that you want to remove all the volume and configuration data from this system.
  • If the system contains several control enclosures (I/O groups), you can continue to operate the system by using the remaining I/O groups while the one control enclosure (I/O group) is removed. However, you must first reconfigure your storage so that Mdisks are not configured in the I/O group that is being removed. Otherwise, volumes that depend on those Mdisks go offline and cannot be restored after the control enclosure is removed.

Procedure

  1. Required: If you are removing a control enclosure (I/O group) from an active system, you must safely remove storage in the I/O group from the system.
    1. Use the management GUI to identify storage pools that contain managed disks (MDisks) that have members in the I/O group to be removed.
    2. Remove the identified Mdisks from their pool and ensure that sufficient space remains available in the pools. You might need to add Mdisks from other I/O groups or migrate volumes to other pools.
    3. If the I/O group that you are removing contains spare drives, ensure that sufficient spare drives are defined in other I/O groups to protect array Mdisks in the system. You might need to move or add spare drives to other I/O groups.
    4. After the Mdisk removal tasks complete, set the state of each drive in the I/O group that is being removed to be unused.
    5. If the I/O group contains expansion enclosures, use the management GUI to remove each expansion enclosure.
  2. Start the service assistant on one of the node canisters.
    Tip: If a node in the control enclosure is the configuration node for the system, it is quicker to start the service assistant on the non-configuration node first.
  3. Use the service assistant to hold the node in service state.
  4. Use the Manage System option to remove the system data from the node.
  5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 on the second node canister in the enclosure.
  6. On one node, open the service assistant Configure Enclosure and select the Reset System ID option.
    This action causes the system to reset.