Formatting drives example

Drives must be formatted as 4 KiB + 0 B before you add them to a recovery group. Ensure that the drives are not part of an existing recovery group. If you format a drive that is a part of the existing recovery group might lead to loss of data.

  1. Create a list of drives as DONOTFORMAT.list that are part of an existing recovery group.
  2. Create a list of drives as FORMAT.list that are NOT part of an existing recovery group and need to be formatted.
  3. Ensure that drives in the FORMAT.list list are NOT in the DONOTFORMAT.list list.
  4. Format drives in the FORMAT.list list.
  5. Verify that all drives are formatted correctly.

Example

  1. Create a list of drives that are part of a recovery group.
    # tspreparedisk -s | grep pdisk  | awk '{print $2}' | sort > /tmp/DONOTFORMAT.list

    Check the listed drives.

    # cat /tmp/DONOTFORMAT.list
    A sample output is as follows:
    /dev/nvme10n1
/dev/nvme11n1
/dev/nvme18n1
/dev/nvme19n1
/dev/nvme20n1
/dev/nvme21n1
/dev/nvme22n1
/dev/nvme23n1
/dev/nvme6n1
/dev/nvme7n1
/dev/nvme8n1
/dev/nvme9n1
  2. Create a list of drives that are not part of a recovery group and did not format as 4 KiB + 0 B. 
    # nvme list | grep Flash  | awk '{print $1}' | grep -v -f /tmp/DONOTFORMAT.list  | grep -v '4 KiB + 0 B' | sort > /tmp/FORMAT.list

    Check the listed drives.

    # cat /tmp/FORMAT.list
    A sample output is as follows:
    /dev/nvme0n1
/dev/nvme12n1
/dev/nvme13n1
/dev/nvme14n1
/dev/nvme15n1
/dev/nvme16n1
/dev/nvme17n1
/dev/nvme1n1
/dev/nvme2n1
/dev/nvme3n1
/dev/nvme4n1
/dev/nvme5n1
  3. Check both lists to ensure that the FORMAT.list list does not contain any drives from the DONOTFORMAT.list list.
    # grep -f /tmp/DONOTFORMAT.list /tmp/FORMAT.list
  4. Format the drives in the FORMAT.list list.
    # while read drv; do printf "$drv "; nvme format --lbaf=0 $drv; done < /tmp/FORMAT.list
    A sample output is as follows:
    /dev/nvme0n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme12n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme13n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme14n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme15n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme16n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme17n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme1n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme2n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme3n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme4n1 Success formatting namespace:1
/dev/nvme5n1 Success formatting namespace:1
  5. Verify that all the drives are formatted correctly.
    # nvme list
    A sample output is as follows:
    Node             SN                   Model                            Namespace Usage           Format      FW Rev  
---------------- ---------------- ----------------------------  ----  ----------- ---------- ------------- ------------
/dev/nvme0n1     S43RNX0M903090   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme10n1    S43RNX0M903217   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme11n1    S43RNX0M902854   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme12n1    S43RNX0M903207   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme13n1    S43RNX0M501057   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme14n1    S43RNX0M903001   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme15n1    S43RNX0M903025   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme16n1    S43RNX0M903027   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme17n1    S43RNX0M903215   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme18n1    S43RNX0M903219   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O 
/dev/nvme19n1    S43RNX0M903031   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme1n1     S43RNX0M903214   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme20n1    S43RNX0M903136   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme21n1    S43RNX0M903213   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme22n1    S43RNX0M903212   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme23n1    S43RNX0M903140   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme2n1     S43RNX0M902995   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme3n1     S43RNX0M903135   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme4n1     S43RNX0M903274   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme5n1     S43RNX0M903000   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme6n1     S43RNX0M903089   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme7n1     S43RNX0M903204   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme8n1     S43RNX0M903165   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O
/dev/nvme9n1     S43RNX0M902921   3.84TB NVMe G3 Tier-1 Flash    1    3.84  TB /   3.84  TB   4 KiB +  0 B   SN1OSN1O