diff --git a/pkg/oc/cli/admin/migrate/storage/storage.go b/pkg/oc/cli/admin/migrate/storage/storage.go
index 657a94a7b6c7..23d2c993a357 100644
--- a/pkg/oc/cli/admin/migrate/storage/storage.go
+++ b/pkg/oc/cli/admin/migrate/storage/storage.go
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/spf13/cobra"
 	"golang.org/x/time/rate"
 
+	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/api/errors"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/apis/meta/v1/unstructured"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/schema"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/sets"
@@ -308,6 +309,13 @@ func (o *MigrateAPIStorageOptions) save(info *resource.Info, reporter migrate.Re
 			Resource(info.Mapping.Resource).
 			Namespace(info.Namespace).
 			Update(oldObject)
+		// storage migration is special in that all it needs to do is a no-op update to cause
+		// the api server to migrate the object to the preferred version.  thus if we encounter
+		// a conflict, we know that something updated the object and we no longer need to do
+		// anything - if the object needed migration, the api server has already migrated it.
+		if errors.IsConflict(err) {
+			return migrate.ErrUnchanged
+		}
 		if err != nil {
 			return migrate.DefaultRetriable(info, err)
 		}