Dan,
Having recently gone through this on 760's, and being in the middle of the same for 2 740's, I can offer a checklist that makes it look trivial. (A plug here for Datalink, one of their SE's did the actual planning and upgrades.)
Firmware was upgraded to 2.8_a2. Get the floppy boot disk image from now.netapp.com, boot the filer from it, and type 'update-flash'. Don't unplug the power until it's done. 6.x needs current firmware I believe.
OnTap was upgraded to 6.1.3R2. Mount the filer's root vol on a unix host, untar the system files into that mounted filesystem, type './install_netapp /<mount-point>' on the unix box, and then 'download' on the filer's console.
Disk firmware was upgraded as part of the OnTap install; this can be done manually as well. No problems with licenses.
I'd suggest taking and then testing a complete backup of all vols on the filer before even starting. The upgrades themselves run without a hitch, but there's a chance* that disk will fail to spin up on the reboot after the upgrade. Check the contents of /etc/disk_fw against sysconfig -r and the disk firmware matrix on the now site to make sure you have current bin files for all disk in the shelves.
http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/ontap/rel63/html/ontap/upgrade/inde...
http://now.netapp.com/NOW/download/tools/diskfw/
(*) From 4.x to 5.3, several disk failed, this was a while ago. From 5.3 to 6.1, no failures on 1 760, 2 disk on the other but one of those came up after head and shelves were power-cycled; the vol rebuilt using the spare. This is the only disconcerting part of the whole thing but apparently the failure rate of disk during upgrades is extremely low.
Daniel Finn wrote:
we have a F740 running an older version of ONTAP, version 5.3.5R2. The rest of our netapps run 6.1.3. What would I need to do in order to bring this netapp up to date? I think I can get my hands on the floppy disks. How hard is the install? Do all the licenses carry over? Also, the firmware release below, 2.3._a2, can/should that be upgraded also?
NetApp Release 5.3.5R2: Tue Mar 28 15:48:22 PST 2000 System ID: 0016791464 (na4m-be) slot 0: System Board (NetApp System Board V N0) Model Name: F740 Serial Number: 221290 Firmware release: 2.3_a2 Memory Size: 512 MBThanks Dan