Under what circumstances will the system ID or the serial number associated

with a filer change?

KB ID: 3011998 Version: 2.0 Published date: 03/24/2011
Categories: Troubleshooting, Administration, Data ONTAP 7G

Answer
The system ID or serial number of a filer has changed and you would like to know why?
Changing the motherboard or nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) card of a filer can lead to a change of System ID or System
Serial Number. The values we are concerned with are identified in the following sysconfig -a

===== SYSCONFIG-A =====

NetApp Release 7.0.4: Sun Feb 5 00:31:41 PST 2006
System ID: 0084253352 (filer1); partner ID: 0084233071 (filer2)
System Serial Number: 311256811(filer1)
System Rev: B0
slot 0: System Board 650 MHz (TSANTSA D0)
Model Name:
FAS270
Part Number:
110-00051
Revision:
D0
Serial Number:
323472
Firmware release:
CFE 1.2.0
Processors:
2
Processor revision: B2
Processor type:
1250
Memory Size:
1022 MB
Possible circumstances resulting from a change:

If you do a head chassis swap, the System Serial Number will change.

If you replace the head of a FAS2x0 system, the System Serial Number and System ID will change.

If you replace a filer's NVRAM card, the System ID will change.

Example:
Swapping the NVRAM cards in a pair of clustered FAS980 filer heads will cause the following changes:
Before the head swap:

fas980cl1-ams> sysconfig -a
NetApp Release 7.2.3: Thu Jul
5 09:51:46 PDT 2007
System ID: 0101164950 (fas980cl1-ams); partner ID: 0101164866
(fas980cl2-ams)
System Serial Number: 210283722 (fas980cl1-ams)
[...]
Backplane Serial Number: 210283722
slot 0: System Board 2782 MHz (NetApp System Board VIII B1)
Model Name:
FAS980
Part Number:
110-00024
Revision:
B1

Serial Number:

[...]

G7GLH2AE130012

slot 11: NVRAM (NetApp NVRAM V)

Revision:
C1
Serial Number:
501654
fas980cl2-ams> sysconfig -a
NetApp Release 7.2.3: Thu Jul
5 09:51:46 PDT 2007
System ID: 0101164866 (fas980cl2-ams); partner ID: 0101164950
(fas980cl1-ams)
System Serial Number: 210283711 (fas980cl2-ams)
[...]
Backplane Serial Number: 210283711
slot 0: System Board 2783 MHz (NetApp System Board VIII B1)
Model Name:
FAS980
Part Number:
110-00024
Revision:
B1
Serial Number:
G7GLH2AE130008
[...]
slot 11: NVRAM (NetApp NVRAM V)
Revision:
C1
Serial Number:
501570
After head swap:

fas980cl1-ams> sysconfig -a
NetApp Release 7.2.3: Jul 5 09:51:46 PDT 2007
System ID: 0101164866 (fas980cl1-ams); partner ID: 0101164950
(fas980c11-ams)
System Serial Number: 210283722 fas980cl1-ams)
[...]
Backplane Serial Number: 210283722
slot 0: System Board 2781 MHz (NetApp System Board VIII B1)
Model Name:
FAS980
Part Number:
110-00024
Revision:
B1
Serial Number:
G7GLH2AE130012
[...]
slot 11: NVRAM (NetApp NVRAM V)
Revision:
C1
Serial Number:
501570
fas980cl2-ams> sysconfig -a
NetApp Release 7.2.3: Thu Jul 5 09:51:46 PDT 2007
System ID: 0101164950 (fas980cl2-ams); partner ID: 0101164866
(fas980cl1-ams)
System Serial Number: 210283711 (fas980cl2-ams)
[...]
Backplane Serial Number: 210283711
slot 0: System Board 2784 MHz (NetApp System Board VIII B1)
Model Name:
FAS980
Part Number:
110-00024
Revision:
B1
Serial Number:
G7GLH2AE130008
[...]
slot 11: NVRAM (NetApp NVRAM V)
Revision:
C1
Serial Number:
501654

Other considerations:
A System ID change on a software ownership based Filer (e.g: FAS270) will require disk reassignment with
SANOWN and can have an impact on any existing Logical Unit Number(LUNs). LUNs can go offline as a result of
BUG 199888: Giveback after NVRAM change on SANOWN Filer makes luns go offline.