Hey everyone! I'm in charge of a storage maintenance activity and need some advice on the proper steps to power it down and dismount it before bringing it back online. We're using SAN switches and servers all running Hyper-V. Here's my plan so far:
1. First, at the Host Side, I'll:
- Shut down all VMs in Hyper-V.
- Shut down the cluster in Hyper-V.
- Take the storage disks offline in Hyper-V.
- Lastly, shut down the physical servers.
2. For the SAN Switches, I plan to shut them down one by one.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this approach or any best practices you recommend!
3 Answers
Make sure you double-check that the switch configurations are saved, not just applied. Also, back up all your switch configurations just in case!
I think you might be overcomplicating it a bit. If you're taking the hosts offline, you could skip offlining the volumes—that might just add more work without any real benefit. The order I recommend is: Shutdown VMs > Hosts > SAN Array > SAN Switches. For turning everything back on, just reverse that. By the way, a lot of folks don’t bother shutting down the SAN switches. Why do you feel it’s necessary?
Your steps look good, but keep in mind that most switches shouldn't actually be shut down. You'll typically need to pull the power instead. Also, when was the last time you powered everything down? Have you documented all your cabling? That can save you a lot of hassle later.
Exactly! Switches are stateless and don't need to be powered off. It's like rebooting your network switches just because you reboot the router—it’s usually unnecessary. I've noticed most hypervisors can handle storage being disconnected and reconnected without a full shutdown.