Xserve Replacement

Hi,
We are about to replace our now aging Xserve (2008) and I can't find any info on the best replacement options. Anyone know of a good file server model or what is best practice?
Ideally we want a simple file server. Although we have a mixed network of both Macs and PCs I have had issues in the past serving files from a PC server as our mac client have a habit of sticking / and . in filenames.
I was thinking MacMini Server using SAN as storage but is this even possible using iscsi??

You have a lot of options. Each option has its benefits and drawbacks. Here is a quick list of the options that you have in front of you. This is not an exhaustive list as it was compiled while watching data migrate from an Xserve...
• Buy a new Mac server. As of the release of Yosemite, Apple no longer has products that are labeled server. This does not mean you can not use Apple products as a server. The big question comes down to what your current server is connected to. Obviously new Apple hardware does not have simply support for FibreChannel, eSATA, etc. Yes, you can support much of that with expansion chassis or bus convertors. So let's say your Xserve has some direct attached FibreChannel storage connected. You can get a Mac mini and a Promise SANLink and continue to do what you are doing. Now, if you go this route, support for your Macs will be great. Support for your Windows clients may not be that great. But the configuration will be easy.
• Move to Windows servers. You could go to pure windows servers. However, if your users have no naming restraint and your existing data set is filled with invalid Windows characters, the migration to the Windows server could be painful (in the middle of this now). If you go this route, do realize that searching your data set will be basically painful. Painfully slow and painfully inaccurate. This is because your Mac clients are unable to use Spotlight (no index exists on Windows servers). The client devices must resort to directory trawling which is slow. This opens a lot of management overhead. Windows servers can be a lot of work to admin.
• Move to Windows Servers and use ExtremeZ-IP to emulate a Mac server. Here you move to Windows hardware and OS but use a tool to provide a very Mac like file sharing experience. This allows the Windows server to advertise AFP and there are ways to implement searching. File names will need to be reviewed as the data is on a Windows file system.
• Move to a cloud hosted service. This is tricky. If your data set is small then this might work. If you are doing 4k video, then this is an expensive fail.
Hope this helped. Oh, and yes the Mac mini will connect to iSCSI storage. I would recommend the USB3 to ethernet dongle but now that the new Mac minis have dual Thunderbolt, you can use the Apple Thunderbolt to 1000Base adaptor.
Reid
Apple Consultants Network
Author "Mavericks Server – Foundation Services" :: Exclusively available in Apple's iBooks Store
Author "Mavericks Server – Control and Collaboration" :: Exclusively available in Apple's iBooks Store

Similar Messages

Need Xserve Replacement Drive

Need a replacement for one of our internal SATA drives on our Xserve Intel. There are no Apple drives out there...what do folks recommend for a replacement that is server-worthy?
Thanks!

Which XServe model do you have? I have been able to use the following drive (actually, 2 of them) in a 2008 XServe, 2.8 GHz quad core.
Seagate Constellation ES 1 TB 7200RPM SATA 2.0 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST31000524NS - Bare Drive
The Sata III version of the drive was *not* recognized by the XServe.

G4 Dual 1.33 GHz Xserve: Replacing one of the mirrored drives

One of the drives in a (Disk Utility) mirrored array from the boot volume is damaged and not repairable. It was one of the original drives shipped with the Xserve, a Hitachi Deskstar 180GB ATA/IDE drives. This drive is now hard to find new, so I was wondering if I could easily just replace it with another ATA/IDE HD of a larger size, rebuild the array and then swap in another of the same new HD for the old good one.
Are there any problems with this scenario?
Chris

This should maintain my original 180GB mirrored array and give me two new 70GB partitions to mirror or possibly do something else with. Is this correct?
No can do.
You can only mirror disks, not partitions. Whatever partition map it has will be replaced if you add this drive to the mirror.
Later versions support mirroring at the partition level - IIRC I'm not sure if that's a 10.5 thing or an Intel/GUID partition map thing, but I know it isn't supported on the G4's running Tiger.
Do I HAVE to partition the new drive at a 180GB to match the old one or can I just add the 250GB partitioned drive?
You can just add the 250. The OS will treat it just like a 180GB drive to match the existing RAID members and the additional space will be lost.
Would I be better off creating a disk image of the array, add the two new 250GB disks, create the array and then restore the image to the new array
If you want the larger space then, sure, get a pair of 250's. Build a mirror using them and copy the data over.
Would Carbon Copy Cloner be good for this?
It would do it, but you can also clone the drive through either Disk Utility or the command-line asr.

Hard Drive Bay 2 Doesn't Show Up, RAID degraded.

I'm getting ready to do a major application upgrade to an existing Xserve (Early 2009). I've noticed that the Bay 2 Hard Drive wasn't showing up in the RAID Utility. I got a spare drive and tonight I powered down the server, swapped that drive out and brought it back up. The system is running fine, but it doesn't seem to recognize the drive in the bay. Either in the System Profiler or in the RAID Utility. I've tried both the old drive and a brand new drive that's meant to be an Apple Xserve replacement SATA drive. I'm concerned that this bay has failed, and if so, I need to sort out what part that is to be replaced. We bought a repair kit when we both he server, so I have a number of parts for it, including a system board.
The Xserve (Early 2009) is running Server 10.6.8, serves up files from an attached Promise VTrack E-Class drive array. I'm getting ready to upgrade from Server 10.6.8 to 10.9.5, which I guess is a 2-step process, (upgrading from Server 10.6.8 to Desktop 10.9.5 then putting Server 3.x on top of that.)
If there's some insight into this issue or if the HD Bays are connected to the system board or something else, that would be wonderful to hear.
Thanks in advance!
--Michael

You could try the xserve in target disk mode connect it to another mac and try swapping the drives, drive bays around to try and pin point where the problem is

Weird Drive Error

An Xserve G5 2.0GHz reported to me this morning that the drive in bay 1 had S.M.A.R.T status of "Failing". The drive is a slice in a mirrored set. As I was going through the motions of preparing how I was going to replace the drive, and while I was waiting to make a extremely relevant backup of the mirrored set before I made the plunge, the error was no longer there and Disk Utility was reporting nothing wrong. I reset the Xserve error status and everything is well. Disk Utility never once reported that the mirror was running degraded. Anyone heard of that before?
Be that as it may, in the event that this happens again, I just want to make sure I have my procedure right in swapping out the bad drive for a new drive, and rebuild the mirror.
I would power down the Xserve, replace the drive, reboot from the OS X Server DVD. Run the terminal application, add the new drive to the RAID, and rebuild the RAID. Right?

OK, here's the deal.
I removed the bad drive, no harm, no foul. Put in the new drive, tried to add the drive to the RAID and rebuild, no dice. I was using the Disk Utility app.
So I moved over to the terminal, and tried it there, no dice. It was there I discovered why I was getting a -9998 error message. The degraded RAID slice is a Hitachi 80GB, that when formatted is 76.7GB. This new drive that I literally received a few days before this problem from Apple is some other brand identified as SI.... Anyhoo it's capacity is 76.3GB and the command line feedback is that it "the target disk is too small to add to this RAID set"!
I am going to clone via SuperDuper! the degraded mirror over the 250GB partitioned drive in bay 3, and boot it up from that. For now. I am going to wait a little bit before I do this as some people are still at work.

New Mac Pro for server

Dear Apple's Hardware Development Team,
From Apple's Xserve replaced by Apple's Mac Pro Tower Case unit with interface extension on RAID Controller Card, Dual/Quard Ethernet Gigabit Lan Card & Dual/Quard Fibre Channel 4Gbit Card, as network server connect to local LAN with high performance connection and connect to SAN Storage by RAID connection or Fibre Channel connection directly or throughout the SAN Fibre Channel switch hub, etc....
Since 10 June 2013, new Mac Pro enounnced on WWDC 2013 in San Francsico, we saw a fantacy, amazing new Mac Pro in fall in later 2013.
We are concerning about the networ server and server administration maintain in new Mac Pro, how we can do it mounting it fixing into traditional server rack in our owned Data Center or outsourced Data Center service provider.
We knew two x Gigabit Ethernet; four x USB 3.0, six x Thunderbolt 2 be a extension ports be used for external SAN Storage and extended capacity.
Is it same as Apple's Xserve or Apple's old Mac Pro acceptable RAID or Fibre Channel connection in the Enterprise Companies private network too?
On the other side, we are concerning the new Mac Pro how to fufill mulitple power supply for redundancy to prevent the power supply failure, on network server standard requirements.
IT Manager, Greater China
Peter Tsang

Because of Xserve server is discontinuse so I have migrate it into several Mac Pro servers in Virtual Environment by VMWare vSphere ESXi to maintain more than ten OS X servers in virtualized.
In future or when the Mac Pro servers warranty expired we may considered to replace it by new Mac Pro server in this January/February 2013 on IT budget. Now, we need give up it and find other methods to maintain OS X server virtual environment in non-Apple or non-Mac hardware environment, but this is not accepatble by VMWare vSphere ESXi requirement.
The VMWare vShpere ESXi information center is not allowed or not supporting to install OS X server in non-Apple or non-Mac (for example, IBM server, DELL server or HP server, Cisco server etc...).
However I using Mac OS X and server but I using different band of SAN switch, SAN Storage (IBM and Cisco) in this virtual environment, this is working very well in many years.
No extension, No improvement, No supporting on Mac Pro server in the future in my company.
Why I do not consider the Mac Mini Server?
Because of the single CPU in Qual-core Intel Corei7 only, not in double CPUs 6-core Intel Xeon.
This is not enough CPU performance to maintain more then two or three vritual OS X server runing in one phyical server or failover in several server in disaster recovery.

DHCP not issuing DNS to client.

My xServer is using OSX Server 10.4.10 and is our networks DHCP server. When I set a client machine to automaticaly get its settings it correctly gets its IP address, Subnet Mask and Gateway. However it will not connect to the internet until I add the DNS settings manually.
I cannot find any reason why this should be. This must be some stupid setting I am missing, any help would be very kind.

It is a new server and I have been trying to configure it. It does not work properly and I have turned to these forums in the hope that somene here would be able to tell m what I have done wrong. Kostas I don't really understand why you are asking me this.
Wjat I have should be a ver simple thing to configure I a have a network which is going to use the xServe as its Gateway, DCHP Server and mail server. I have allocated the mailserver the internal I address of 192.168.101.40 and my ISP has given me an ip of 62.49.189.82 for the WAN side. At the moment it seems to work, except for three things, which may be related(DNS, FTP & Host names), my plan was to fix the first and see if the others goes away.
The first problem is that client machines are not recieving the DNS settings and so they cannot connect to the internet unless I manually provide them with the ip address of the xServer.
I have submitted a couple of screenshots via pdf documents to show you my settings, and I will be very greatful if you can see what I have done wrong. Have I provided enough information for someone to be able to help me. Most of the settings I have made I copied from my old machine (A Cobalt Qube) which the xServe replaces. Until the Qube failed it worked without any problems for 5 years. I don't understand why it is that this server seems so much more difficult to configure than the Qube.
Apple has a good reputation for providing easy to configure machines, this software seems to have bypassed the QC check on software design.

Looking for a replacement processor for a XSERVE G5 2.3GHZ DP

I have the below system & need a replacement processor & am wondering if any one can point me in the correct direction.
XSERVE G5 2.3GHZ DP CTO
Z0BH
Hard Drive 0655482 1750GB ADM (7X250GB ULTRA ATA)
Cache Battery 0653776 None
Country Kit 0655451 Country Kit
PROCESSOR 0655433 DUAL 2.3 GHZ POWERPC G5
MEMORY 0654575 1GB DDR400 ECC SDRAM (2x512)
HARD DRIVE 0655939 148GB ADM (2x74GB SERIAL ATA)
OPTICAL DRIVE 0654841 COMBO DRIVE (CDRW/DVDROM)
LOWER PCI SLOT 0653557 NONE
UPPER PCI SLOT 0653558 NONE
MAC OS LANGUAGE 0655449 Mac OS X Svr,Unlmtd Lic
COUNRY KIT 0655448 Country Kit
Most appreciated.
Thanks very much.
Cheers.
Sjobeck

Call Apple enterprise. They will "probably" help you with this. No guarantees, but they have been far more helpful than the "rules" would allow for me. I am not sold on Apple's servers anymore because of their support issues, but Apple Enterprise has always been good to me,

Replace cd drive in a G4 Xserve

I have one of the original Xserve with only a cd drive. Can I replace it with a combo or superdrive? It is needed for software installs. If not what is the best way to connect a BOOTABLE DVD drive?

You can install using Target Disk Mode into the first bay, by swapping the disk out of the ADM brick and installing on the disk elsewhere, or an external FireWire enclosure with a DVD drive -- these are the usual recommendations, if you poke around a little in the forums.
Swapping out the slimline slot-load CD drive for a Matsushita or HL-DT-ST (vendors; various models available) is the most integrated approach. Look for a DVD widget (same vendor and same model) used in another slot-load Mac for best compatibility. This if you're willing to crack open the box.
The connectors I've seen on the slimline drives I've worked with are consistent, though there's often a sled or rail kit that can need to be swapped (often with an external connector), and the mounting (screw) holes can sometimes have different locations and patterns. (Which is why using the same manufacturer and model -- or swapping a slot-load DVD from another Mac -- makes it easier.)

Evaluating Xserve to replace Novell eDirectory / Groupwise

Hello all,
I just wanted to get a feel for the capabilities of OS X Server. I've recently installed a new Xserve and have it providing DNS / DHCP / NAT / Print / Open Directory and Windows services. Today, I was able to get a Windows machine to authenticate to this machine and set up a roaming profile / home directory (after much research!) We also use Linux clients, and will probably start adding OS X clients to the network as well.
I am looking to replace our current Novell eDirectory file / print services with OS X Server, and coming from that, I was wondering a couple of things.
First off, can OS X Server provide automatic drive mapping / mounts to Windows / Linux clients? Currently, when a user logs into our Novell server, they get all their drives mapped automatically as part of a login script. These drives are just shares on the Novell fileserver. I would like to replicate this action for our users with OS X Server. Is this possible?
Secondly, users logging into Novell get all their printers set up when they connect to the server. They don't have to add them, they just show up. Is there a way to make OS X Server provide the same service to Windows clients?
Finally, can you set up Open Directory users to only have access to certain printers / drives etc? I know you can set up shares and access lists and all this, but I want to be able to define that by group or by user. For example, I want user X who is a developer to get access only to developer shares and developer printers, so I would think I could set up a group with those privileges and just assign that user to the "group" and they automatically get it. Can this be done is OS X?
Most of our users are on Windows, and basically I'd love to be able to get away from Novell (particularly license costs) and move to OS X Server, without having to teach 200 users how to add drive mapping and printers and such. I don't want to have to visit 200 workstations either, so I am hoping I can define all this on the server and make it happen per client as they log in. Apple touts OS X Server as a good replacement for Active Directory / Novell eDirectory services so I'm hoping that it lives up to my expectations.
Anyone care to chime in? Thanks, I look forwarding to making this work!
Joe Jenkins
Network Engineer
Davis Tool Inc
Xserve Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Hi
First off, can OS X Server provide automatic drive
mapping / mounts to Windows / Linux clients?
Currently, when a user logs into our Novell server,
they get all their drives mapped automatically as
part of a login script. These drives are just shares
on the Novell fileserver. I would like to replicate
this action for our users with OS X Server. Is this
possible?
If you launch WorkGroup Manager and click on the Windows tab there are settings there that should help you achieve what you want in some way.
Secondly, users logging into Novell get all their
printers set up when they connect to the server. They
don't have to add them, they just show up. Is there a
way to make OS X Server provide the same service to
Windows clients?
You can apply managed preferences for users defined in the Open Directory Node can access in terms of printers and quotas etc. There are some good 3rd-Party add-ons that can augment what is available also.
Finally, can you set up Open Directory users to only
have access to certain printers / drives etc? I know
you can set up shares and access lists and all this,
but I want to be able to define that by group or by
user. For example, I want user X who is a developer
to get access only to developer shares and developer
printers, so I would think I could set up a group
with those privileges and just assign that user to
the "group" and they automatically get it. Can this
be done is OS X?
See the previous answer.
Bear in mind that if these are networked printers on the same IP address range and subnet as the clients then anyone who knows how to add a network printer using Printer Setup Utility and/or has access to the local client admin account could bypass this easily. You could really lock things down by either physically connecting the printers to the server usings its second NIC or if they are USB printers use a USB hub.
If they are all the same printer type you could have a Pool of printers.
For example two to three Epson R800 Printers could be the Epson Pool. Users would access these printers as if they were just one printer. When a client sends a print job the server will spool it to the first printer. If the first printer runs out of paper or ink it will spool to the second printer and so on. The same thing would apply if more than one user decides to print at the same time. First person to the queue would get the first printer and so on. You could have a series of Printer Pools defined for a particular group that only users from that group can use.
Hope this helps – Tony

Replacing Xserve, how to deal with RAID5+0 array

We're finally looking at replacing our 8+ year old Xserve, which has served us faithfully, with a new Nehalem model. The question is what to do about the two XRAID arrays that we have attached via fibrechannel. Both are fully stocked with 14 disks apiece, configured as RAID5 but then combined into a single logical drive via software RAID0.
The question is - if we replace the old XServe with a new one, will we have to completely rebuild the RAID5+0? If so, can this be done without data loss?
We do have the means to migrate all the data off and then back on after reconstruction but that is, of course, a lengthy and thus unappealing option.
Any help will be most appreciated.
Thanks,
Cary Talbot
Vicksburg, MS

Hi Tony -
Many thanks for the reply but unfortunately neither thread you referenced addressed the issue at hand.
What I've got is two XRAID boxes with 14 disks each. All four of the RAID arrays (2 per box of course) are RAID5. However, rather than having 4 separate logical volumes, we combined the RAID5 arrays together with a software RAID0 on the Xserve host. I understand that switching out the Xserve box shouldn't have any effect on the data stored in the XRAID disks themselves but the question becomes can we simply reconstruct the software RAID0 on the new XServe and not loose all the data stored on the four RAID5 arrays? Has anyone tried this?
Thanks for any advice/tips/experiences anyone can offer.
Cary

Finding replacement xServe RAID Drive Modules for sale

I've just started a new IT job and inherited an xServe (snow leopard) and xServe RAID
I'm not an expert on either. I've some experience with OS X Server, but I've never been a full on server admin.
One drive is dead. I believe they're 500GB units in the first six bays.
I also believe this is the most recent xServe RAID hardware. Purchased in 2008 or so.
So, first, where on earth would I buy a replacement?
And assuming that's possible, what are people's suggestions for buying drive modules for the other bays, and replacement parts for the xServe itself (power suppies, etc.).
Thanks!

first of all i don't have experience with proprietary Apple products, but typically i believe you can buy any hard drive so long as the interface is compatible (SATA or SAS for example) and the size is the same. there should not be a need to buy 'special Apple xserve hard drives'. if you buy a drive larger than 500 GB then the extra space beyond 500 GB will just be ignored depending on the type of RAID you have setup. definitely do not buy a disk smaller than 500 GB. pull out the disk that is bad and see what the make/model is. my xserve uses Seagate drives so you could probably just search eBay or whatever for the model number of the drive and use that. the hard drive should be able to be removed from the caddy so you don't really need a whole new "module".
as for power supplies those are proprietary and will need to be purchased thru apple or somewhere else like eBay, just search for the part number...

Mac Minis to Replace Xserves?

I'm thinking about buying all Mac Minis to replace 15 Apple Xserves and maybe even consolidate a few servers.
Mainly the Mac Minis will be running Open Directory, file sharing, hosting websites, or mysql data. I assume they will be able to handle all of this just fine.
My questions are:
What is everyone doing for failover with Mac Minis? Are you keeping another spare mini on the side with the exact same build so when the production mini fails you can just load up the spare?
Do the newer Mac Minis have quick access to the hard drive? So if the logic board fails you can still recover any lost data.
Thank you!

Mainly the Mac Minis will be running Open Directory, file sharing, hosting websites, or mysql data. I assume they will be able to handle all of this just fine.
The answer is - it depends.
The Mac Mini doesn't compare to the XServe from a high availability or performance standpoint. There's no redundant power supply or multiple NICs, it has limited memory and expansion (although ThunderBolt is starting to come up with some interesting options).
If your XServes were lightly loaded you might be OK, but you need to seriously consider this if you're running high availability/business critical or heavy workloads.
In addition, new Mac Minis will come with Mountain Lion Server. I don't know what version of Mac OS X Server you've been running on your XServes, but Mountain Lion Server strips out some of those tools. It no longer comes with MySQL, for example. Of course, you're welcome to install and manage your own MySQL installation, and if you're heavily dependent on MySQL then you probably already do this, but if you're looking for a one-click MySQL you're out lof luck. Similarly with the web sites - the GUI has been stripped to the barest features and you'll likely need to get under the hood to get any serious web development done. Again, you might be already doing this, but you might not.
What is everyone doing for failover with Mac Minis?
Failover is a very personal thing - different people want and need different things based on business needs. For some, a few hours of downtime while someone gets to the office and kicks in a standby system is OK, for others some kind of separate hardware load balancer is a must.
Are you keeping another spare mini on the side with the exact same build so when the production mini fails you can just load up the spare?
Again, this depends on your use case. For most people the important stuff isn't the machine, it's the data. For that you need data replication options, as well as mechanisms to failover (and failback). Having an idle machine doesn't help if the only copy of your data is in the machine that just blew up (or was dropped, stolen, crushed, etc.) For the most part the drives are accessible but that really shouldn't be your failover model.

XServe Raid Controller Replacement

My XRaid runs fine, then shows a fault on one of the two RAID controllers. The other takes over, and everything works as far as serving files, but the array attached to the RAID controller with the fault will not allow files to be written or created. Reading is fine.
If I reset the controller, shut down the XServe (intel), then reboot the XRaid, all functionality is restored. I'm figuring that I need a replacement RAID controller. Anyone have a good source for the RAID controller? Or a better long-term solution?
Thanks!

Hi
You should still be able to order replacement/exchange parts for the XServe RAID via Apple Service or GSX. If you go to your nearest Apple Repair Centre/Specialist with the XServe RAID's Serial Number they should be able to quote for a replacement/exchange?
Are you sure it's not the FC Cable itself? Have you tried swopping the cables? Do you have another cable you can try instead? Have you tried re-seating the Controllers? Shutdown the RAID, remove the kettle leads, remove the affected controller. If you have a can of air give the inside a good blast and insert the controller.
Tony

XServe Raid won't mount after drive replacement

We had a drive go bad on an XServe Raid. We replaced the drive. It went through the rebuilding process. Now we can't mount the raid. The verify in the disk utility is successful but it still won't mount. What are we missing?

I have managed to fix the problem (at least it's still going at the moment...). We were just about to return the Fiber Card to Apple, but just before I removed the card from the G5 I had one last look at the settings on the RAID. Previously I had noticed that LUN Masking was on. I didn't take much notice of this before, as I read in an Apple manual somewhere that LUN Masking is always on while the Xserve is initializing the disks. As a last resort I thought to try and force LUN Masking to be disabled. I changed the array to JBOD, so the disks wouldn't be initialized, and entered the advanced settings. I then went to the LUN Masking section and turned off masking for both controllers. I then shut down the Xserve and unplugged it for 10 minutes.
I then turned on the Xserve and the G5 and to my utter delight, the G5 said "Unrecognized disk inserted"! The G5 was finally seeing the RAID.
I then formatted the RAID and everything has been fine since (4-5 hours).
I have no idea how LUN Masking turned on, the masking list had no devices in it, so the RAID was basically disallowing anyone access through fiber. Upon turning masking off, the RAID reappeared on the G5. Apple support said nothing about LUN Masking when I on the phone to them. I guess they though resetting the RAID controllers would reset the LUN Masking, but it doesn't seem to. I repeat: Resetting the RAID controllers does not reset LUN Masking.
All along this was the problem, but no-one at Apple or the reseller we purchased the Xserve RAID from thought of it!
I hope this helps someone out there.
Elijah
PowerMac G5, PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6) G5: 1.8Ghz 1Gb RAM Geforce 6800. PowerBook: 100Gb HD, 1.25Gb RAM

Xserve Replacement

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