Removing a storage system using the CLI

You can replace or decommission a storage system using the command-line interface (CLI).

During this procedure, you will add a new device, migrate data off of the storage system and remove the old MDisks.

An alternative to following this procedure is to migrate all of the virtual disks (VDisks) that are using storage in this MDisk group to another MDisk group. This allows you to consolidate the VDisks in a single or new group. However, you can only migrate one VDisk at a time. The procedure outlined below migrates all the data through a single command.

You can also use this procedure to remove or replace a single MDisk in a group. If an MDisk experiences a partial failure, such as a degraded array, and you can still read the data from the disk but cannot write to it, you can replace just that MDisk.

Perform the following steps to remove a storage system:

Add the new storage system to your cluster configuration.
Issue the following command:
svctask addmdisk -mdisk mdiskx:mdisky:mdiskz... mdisk_grp_name
Where mdiskx:mdisky:mdiskz... are the names of new MDisks that have a total capacity that is larger than the decommissioned MDisks and mdisk_grp_name is the name of the MDisk group that contains the MDisks that you want to decommission.
You should now have an MDisk group that you want to decommission and the new MDisks.
Ensure that the capacity of the new MDisks is the same or exceeds that of the old MDisks before you proceed to step 4.
Issue the following command to force delete the old MDisks from the group:
```
svctask rmmdisk -force -mdisk mdiskx:mdisky:mdiskz... mdisk_grp_name
```
Where mdiskx:mdisky:mdiskz... are the old MDisks that you want to delete and mdisk_grp_name is the name of the MDisk group that contains the MDisks that you want to delete. Depending upon the number and size of the MDisks, and the number and size of the VDisks that are using these MDisks, this operation takes some time to complete, even though the command returns immediately.
Check the progress of the migration process by issuing the following command:
```
svcinfo lsmigrate
```
When all the migration tasks are complete, for example, the command in step 5 returns no output, verify that the MDisks are unmanaged.
Access the storage system and unmap the LUNs from the SAN Volume Controller ports.
Note: You can delete the LUNs if you no longer want to preserve the data that is on the LUNs.
Issue the following CLI command:
```
svctask detectmdisk
```
Verify that there are no MDisks for the storage system that you want decommission.
Remove the storage system from the SAN so that the SAN Volume Controller ports can no longer access the storage system.