How to move (migrate) a vFiler unit

When to use this section

Use this section if you want to move a vFiler unit (that is, the data and the vFiler unit configuration) from one storage system to another--for example, from a storage system that is overloaded to one that has spare capacity, or from an old storage system to a new one. This is sometimes called "migrating" a vFiler unit.

The procedures in this section assume that you want to destroy the original vFiler unit once the new vFiler unit is up and running. If you want to leave the original vFiler unit intact and create a backup copy of it for disaster-recovery purposes, use the procedures listed under How to create, activate, or delete a disaster-recovery vFiler unit instead.

Ways to migrate a vfiler unit

You can migrate a vFiler unit in two ways:

By copying data from a source vFiler unit to a destination vFiler unit.
For more information, see Migrating the vFiler unit by copying data.
By changing the software-based disk ownership of the disks between clustered nodes using the SnapMover data migration technology, thus avoiding copying of data from a source vFiler unit to the destination vFiler unit.
For more information about software-based disk ownership, see the Data ONTAP Storage Management Guide.

For information about migrating data using SnapMover, see Migrating a vFiler unit between clustered nodes with SnapMover.