A FAS6280 running ONTAP 8.0.2 HAS A 32-bit root aggregate. After upgrading to Data ONTAP 8.1, what is the status of the root aggregate?

Data ONTAP 8.1 introduced support for 64-bit aggregates but retained backward compatibility with existing 32-bit aggregates, including the root aggregate. The upgrade process does not trigger any automatic conversion; an administrator must explicitly initiate the 32-bit to 64-bit conversion using aggregate expansion procedures after the upgrade completes.

In-place aggregate conversion from 32-bit to 64-bit is a manual, administrator-initiated procedure and does not occur automatically during the upgrade process.

ONTAP does not auto-migrate root aggregates to a new 64-bit aggregate at any point; aggregate data migration is always an explicit administrative operation.

The upgrade from 8.0.x to 8.1 does not fail due to a 32-bit root aggregate because 8.1 fully supports 32-bit aggregates and imposes no pre-upgrade conversion requirement.