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Deleting stale aggregate listings after switchback

In some circumstances after switchback, you might notice the presence of stale aggregates. Stale aggregates are aggregates that have been removed from ONTAP, but whose information remains recorded on disk. Stale aggregates are displayed in the nodeshell aggr status -r command but not in the storage aggregate show command. You can delete these records so that they no longer appear.

About this task

Stale aggregates can occur if you relocated aggregates while the MetroCluster configuration was in switchover. For example:

  1. Site A switches over to Site B.

  2. You delete the mirroring for an aggregate and relocate the aggregate from node_B_1 to node_B_2 for load balancing.

  3. You perform aggregate healing.

At this point a stale aggregate appears on node_B_1, even though the actual aggregate has been deleted from that node. This aggregate appears in the output from the nodeshell aggr status -r command. It does not appear in the output of the storage aggregate show command.

  1. Compare the output of the output of the storage aggregate show command and the nodeshell aggr status -r command: storage aggregate show run local aggr status -r

    Stale aggregates appear in the run local aggr status -r output but not in the storage aggregate show output. For example, the following aggregate might appear in the run local aggr status -r output:

    Aggregate aggr05 (failed, raid_dp, partial) (block checksums)
    Plex /aggr05/plex0 (offline, failed, inactive)
      RAID group /myaggr/plex0/rg0 (partial, block checksums)

     RAID Disk Device  HA  SHELF BAY CHAN Pool Type  RPM  Used (MB/blks)  Phys (MB/blks)
     --------- ------  ------------- ---- ---- ----  ----- --------------  --------------
     dparity   FAILED          N/A                        82/ -
     parity    0b.5    0b    -   -   SA:A   0 VMDISK  N/A 82/169472      88/182040
     data      FAILED          N/A                        82/ -
     data      FAILED          N/A                        82/ -
     data      FAILED          N/A                        82/ -
     data      FAILED          N/A                        82/ -
     data      FAILED          N/A                        82/ -
     data      FAILED          N/A                        82/ -
     Raid group is missing 7 disks.
  2. Remove the stale aggregate:
    1. From either node's prompt, change to the advanced privilege level: set -privilege advanced

      You need to respond with y when prompted to continue into advanced mode and see the advanced mode prompt (*>).

    2. Remove the stale aggregate: aggregate remove-stale-record -aggregate aggregate_name
    3. Return to the admin privilege level: set -privilege admin
  3. Confirm that the stale aggregate record was removed: run local aggr status -r