Resolving upgrade issues

What you need to know

Every Data ONTAP release family has unique requirements concerning upgrades. Before you decide whether to upgrade, you should understand

Issues you must resolve before upgrading to the new release
New system behavior after upgrading to the new release

Because significant new features are introduced in each new Data ONTAP release family, you might encounter issues when upgrading to a new release family, especially if you are not upgrading from the immediately previous version of Data ONTAP.

For example, if you are upgrading from a release in the 6.4 family to Data ONTAP 7.1, you must review and resolve upgrade issues associated with the 6.5 and 7.0 release families (but not 6.4 or earlier) before upgrading to 7.1.

For more information, see Appendix C, Understanding Release Family Upgrades.

The following sections discuss upgrade issues and new system behavior associated with release families:

Required intermediate upgrades

Depending on the version of Data ONTAP software you currently have installed and the model of your storage system, you might have to upgrade to an intermediate release before upgrading to Data ONTAP 7.1.

If your CompactFlash-based storage system is running Data ONTAP 6.4.1 or earlier:
You must upgrade to the latest release in the 6.4 family before upgrading to 7.1.
If your diskette-based storage system is running Data ONTAP 6.2 or earlier:
You must upgrade to the latest release in the 6.3 family before upgrading to 7.1.

For more information, see Upgrading from releases earlier than Data ONTAP 6.5.