Adding Additional Drives to 3.55 Xserve RAID

So, we just purchased the 3.55 Xserve RAID (7 500gb ADM's). I'm surprised to read that I cannot "grow" the volume by adding ADM's without reformating the volume using OS X. Is this still true?
Our intention was to simply add ADM's as needed, however this is likely not going to work... if each time I need to offload the data and reformat the volume.
Annoyed.

Xsan allows you to aggregate fibre channel LUNs (analogous to "disks") into what are called "storage pools." You then aggregate storage pools into volumes. So to grow a volume, you can either add more LUNs to an existing storage pool, or you can add more storage pools to a volume.
A bit technical.
Keep in mind that to run Xsan, you will need a few things:
1) A fibre channel card for every machine that wants to access the volume over fibre
2) A dedicated ethernet network which is separate, and used specifically for metadata traffic on the volume -- this enables Xsan to do file locking
3) A pair of dedicated metadata controller machines -- preferably Xserves with > 2 GB of RAM, to manage the SAN.
At minimum, figure $20K on top of the storage to get started with Xsan, if you want it to perform well and be reliable. You owe it to yourself to get Xsan training and certified as well -- making errors early in the planning/deployment process can magnify later on.
Xsan is great for what it does best -- high speed, shared, video editing -- but to just give the ability to grow a volume, I personally think it's overkill. If you can stick to one RAID you could probably do a concatenated RAID volume with OS X's built-in RAID.

Similar Messages

Added a 2nd Array on my Xserve RAID, Though it's not appearing in disk utilityt

I have an Xserve RAID unit. Up until now I have just been running 1 side of it with 7 drives on RAID 5 = about 4TB. I recently picked up another identical RAID unit with 7 drives to fill out the right hand bay of the unit doubling our capacity. I have installed these and initialised the array which took about 48 hours, it's now showing as online and green lights all the way.
Now I've gone to make use of the extra space but it is not showing as available in the mounted RAID icon on the desktop, nor will the new array appear in disk utility. When I access server admin however, on the overview screen it shows I have 8TB on offer. Contrary to this in the system profiler the 'Fibre Channel Domain 2' is not reporting any SCSI devices unlike 'Fibre Channel Domain 0' - Not sure this is related.
If anyone can help me gain access to the new found 4TB I would be greatly appreciative.

it is not showing as available in the mounted RAID icon on the desktop
It won't.
The XServe RAID is really built as two independent RAID controllers and drive sets in one enclosure.
The 7 left-most drives are connected to the top controller, and the 7 right-most drives are connected to the bottom controller. They are independent. There's no way to build a single 14-drive array - the best you can do is build two 7-drive arrays.
What you should find is that if you connect the bottom controller to your server, the second array should appear on the desktop, separate and distinct from your existing volume.
If you really need to expand your volume to cover all 14 drives then you'll need to use software RAID 0 (striping) on the server to meld both of the 7-drive arrays into a single logical volume.

Which 750GB drives used in an XServe RAID?

Could somebody with an XServe RAID with 750GB drives please tell me, which drives are used in this configuration? You can look it up in the XServe RAID admin utility, under Arrays and Drives when selecting a drive in "drive" mode.
Thanks a lot,
Floh

ST3750640 NA P
Revision 3.BTF
it is a seagate

Easiest solution for adding Fibre Channel Tape Backup to Xserve RAID setup

I'm interested in getting a Fibre Channel LTO-3 tape library such as the Exabyte 221L for my Xserve RAID/Xserve G5 setup. I realize there are SCSI LTO-3 solutions that are less expensive than FC, but I'd prefer not to have to add a SCSI card to my Xserve, mainly because I'd have to pull the video card and run the server headless (horrors!). However, I understand that I must get a Fibre Channel switch to allow the LTO library, the Xserve, and the Xserve RAID to communicate... you can't just daisy chain FC devices. The least expensive switch I can find is the new QLogtic SANbox 3050 for about $1800. For my situation, in which these will be the only FC devices I'll probably ever use, does this switch sound appropriate? The specs on the switch can be found here: http://www.qlogic.com/products/sanbox/sanbox_3050.asp.
Xserve RAID & Xserve G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

For simple environments like yours, it's trivially easy. You must plug everything in, and you're good to go... as simple as a network switch.
Now if you start adding multiple hosts (i.e. plug in a second Xserve or G5), you need to be careful, because in the default configuration everything is "wide open," so every device can see every storage LUN. This would actually be problematic, as systems could (actually, would) corrupt each other's storage. When you get to this point, you'll need to look at either zoning the ports on the switch, or using LUN masking on the Xserve RAID to allocate specific pieces of storage to specific hosts.
But for now, just get the switch, plug everything in, and you're off.
BTW if you mark "answered" for me, versus for the thread overall, it helps me out a bit in this forum ranking system, whatever it is.
Cheers.

Xserve RAId MTBF

Hello,
Acn anyone tell me the MTBF (Mean Time before Failure) of the Apple Drive Modules for the Xserve RAID.
Thanks!

IBM don't seem to publish MTBF figures for their drives. However, other similar drives run in the 1 million+ hours MTBF and I'd be surprised if Apple went with a drive that was way out of line of other manufacturers.
MTBF has proven to be a poor gauge of disk failure rates which may explain why they no longer publish them.

Dropped frames only on xserve raid

dropped frames only on xserve raid
i'm not able to capture on xserve raid without dropped frames. tihis was a working sytem bud one morning it dosn't work. i capture on mac pro internal drives or external fw drives without problems.
the xserve raid is new formated in raid level5 [mac os extended journaled and striped in raid 0 extended] and the risult of kona system test are 178mb/sec write and 167mb/sec read.
must bee enought for 8bit uncompressed pal, no? also if i divide the stripe set the system dosn't work on both controler. i tried also to change the fibrechannel cables!
i checked also the fibrechannel card with expansion slot utility and the message is that runns at maximum speed.
there are no error message on raid admin, the xserve raid appears ok.
i'm shure that the fcp settings are ok, i know the list that regard dropped frames from apple.
i'm desperate, can you help?
thanks jochen
system:
mac pro 2x3ghz-5gb ram(from apple and the hardware test on the system dvd is ok)
osx 10.4.10
fibre channel card: lsilogic firmware 1.2.18.0 in slot 4
xserve raid 15x250gb firmware 1.5.1/ 151c
aja io (driver 3.0)
raid admin 1.5.1 (diver 1.0)
fcp 5.1.4

I'm guessing conditioning is the same as optimization, but I can't find anything about it in the help documentation. I ran another capture test today with no problems.
An interesting side event is that when I started experiencing dropped frames I ran the Kona System Test utility to verify write and read speeds. It wouldn't run (no write or read) on my RAID. I tried it on my Firewire drives with no problems. I discovered that in the Kona System Test preferences there is a choice of I/O API for Macintosh or Unix. When switching to the Unix I/O API the test ran fine with expected read and write speeds reported. I've used the Kona utility in the past without having to change that setting. I sent an inquiry to AJA.

Does Xserve Raid 3.5 TB supports HD uncompress?

Does exist any configuration for Xserve Raid 3.5TB 7 drives, that supports HD Uncompress 720p 10 bit video formats?
Will I get that only with 14 drives?
Can I get that with 8 drives? 4 drives in each controller.
Thanks
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Final Cut Pro 5.1.1, Aja Kona LH

What's the data rate -- how many frames per second?
A common list is on the Xsan page:
http://www.apple.com/xsan/videoworkflow.html
I'd say if you're at 24 or 30 FPS:
720p 24fps 46MBps
720p 30fps 50MBps
You would be okay with 7 drives in half an Xserve RAID. If you need more than that, you'd need 14 drives.
If you're doing 1080i uncompressed, definitely you need all 14 drives striped in a RAID 50.

How to low-format disks in XServer RAID

I am new to the macworld and have been assigned a mission to low-format 2 XServer RAID with 28x400Gb Hitachi Deskstar disks. I need to low-format it because the customer is about to sell the servers, and are therefore obliged by law/or insurancecompany to make sure that no data can be restored.
I have tried to extract the disks and run them in a PC with a software called KillDisks, which writes zeros to the disk 10-fold times. However the PC will not accept the disk, im getting errors that states that no sectors can be read. Also, in BIOS the disk are supposedly 126 Gb...when in fact its capacity is 400 Gb.
Sounds like the Apple firmware is not compatible.
So, my question is...can I perform this task from inside the XServer, via some webinterface or perhaps the remote adminapplication?

I see you point but I mostly meant the need to extract/take apart the drives.
The job was to make the data (reasonably) "unrecoverable"?
(The KillDrive application can maybe even "destroy" drives for Xserve RAID use?)
Maybe not relevant here but the Xserve RAID woun't "buy"/just work with "any" drive/firmware.
He shouldn't even have to "reformat" raid-sets as you can write zeroes to each whole raid-set volume from the Disk Utility using the "security option" (will take a lot of time though - but probably much less time than doing it for each drive individually - if JBOD or otherwise).
Maybe even possibly started from OS X install DVD (if servers are "wiped"). Don't know if FC drivers are present on the DVD, but think they are.
(Also a "Mirror Door" G4 or Xserve G4 can probably "format" (really initialize) these drives and can at least hold up to 4 drives at a time.)
And you can manage (but not erase drives/volumes on) the Xserve RAID from any computer (if you know the IP) using the Java RAID_Admin.jar file that is "extractable" from The OS X version file (.app) "package". And it can be run on (most?) OSes that can run Java. Certainly from Windows with Java installed.
And you don't buy a couple of old preowned used Xserve RAIDs and spend a huge amount to restore data if you don't think/know it's REALLY worth the while.

Drives just stop with new Xserve raid

I have just set up a new Xserve on 10.4.5 with 2 x 400 gig drives.The raid has been set up by the book twice and the drives were formated aswell, the problem is that after the raid is set up i then test it by copying lots of data to it from various machine across the network and after about 10 gigs of copying the drives just stop, on their own(not in a raid) the drives work fine.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks
Matt

Hello, Diego Arana and welcome to the AppleBoards,
+I don´t know what OS the Xserve RAID has, I just know that it is the first one.+
The Xserve RAID has no operating system on it. It is essentially a very fancy external hard drive that attaches over fibre channel. It does a firmware version that can be updated but that is the closest thing to an OS that it has. (Unless you're adding drives you can probably leave that alone.) The XRAID is controlled over either of the ethernet ports using the RAID Admin program - if you don't have a copy download it from Apple's support site.
+Is it possible to connect a New MacPro (Early 2009) to a Xserve RAID (RAID 720G/4DRIVE/2X2GB FC) via fiber channel?+
Yes, I have done this and it is straightforward. The fibre will negotiate down to 2GB, of course, but it does just work. If you're talking about the Apple shipped fibre card it is (at least in the states) shipped with SFP connectors that match the SFP connectors that are on the Xserve RAID and you just use the copper cabling (not the optical fibre) to connect them unless you are going a very long distance. If you order the card (again in the states) with Xserve the copper cables are included when they ship it.
If you do have optical connections you can buy optical to copper/SFP converters. I have several of these on my fibre switch and they are not more complicated than adding the adaptor and plugging them in - at least on the fibre switch. I have never actually hooked up an XRAID to optical fibre but this is pretty common in XSAN environments with longer "cable" runs.
HTH,
=Tod

Xserve Raid Not Showing all Drives Empty - No Green Lights on Xserve Raid Drives

I have an Xserve Raid. I recently set it up with my Xserve server with fiber cables and now when the Xserve Raid system boots and starts all the drives show as empty in the Raid monitor. Not sure if I have something configured wrong and I think I shut it down incorrectly before I got it hooked up right. When I first got it I was able to see the lights on all the drives but now it boots but no drives show up at all. I have fiber cables to the host Xserve machine and the Xserve Raid plugged into the network with only 1x ethernet cables (not 2 if that makes a difference). When I try to manage the Xserve Raid all drives show as empty even though all the 500GB drives are plugged in. Not seeing any green lights when the Xserve raid boots indicates something is up. I reset the controller cards to stock with the paper clip to factory settings. Does anyone have any ideas on what to try. Anyone have this issue? I haven't found any discussions except one that had a single side of drives go down because of a bad controller card. My Xserve Raid shows no drives at all. Any help is appreciated.

Expansion is a 2 step process: First, you expand the array. Second, you merge the slices. The documentation is clear on step #2, but the GUI doesn't FORCE you to do it. However, it is necessary.
If you did both steps, try rebooting your host and see if it picks up the changed size. It does work... the usual issue though is growing the file system to recognize the additional size. On Linux, I can't help you.

X-Raid question about adding more drives

Hi Guys.
I am running an X Server (10.3.8 dual 2GHZ PPC G5)with an X-Raid attached. Right now it is only half full with a RAID5 volume that is my main file server.
My question is can i add three 500GB drives into the empty slots of my X-Raid and congiure them as another RAID5 volume without killing my current drives setup on the X-Raid?
Thanks for any help.

You can do it hot. The 3 drives you insert will not affect the exiting RAID set in any way whatsoever. The Xserve RAID supports up to 3 RAID sets per RAID controller (each controller handles one "half" of the array -- so 7 drives). What you're doing is very common.
The only thing I say is that you need to be sure you replace the 3 unused "blanks" and don't accidentally eject one of the drives that's already part of a RAID set. This should be pretty obvious as the "live" drives have blue and green lights, and the blanks have none, but other than that, it's a cakewalk.

Where to buy a xserve RAID drive module in the UK?

Hi does anyone know anywhere that still sells xserve RAID drive modules for a 2005 RAID
we have 400 GB drives but can use a 500 GB because we have the latest firmware.
If modules are unavailable can I take the failed drive out of the module and replace with a new one.
The current drive is a Hitachi Deskstar HDS724040KLAT80

Just sold our complete xsan setup (42 400Gb modules included) for 2500 euro... (so 60 euro per drive) and that included 4 XServes as well

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...

Dropped frames on Xserve RAID upgraded w/750GB drives.

I'm capturing in 10-bit uncompressed standard definition 720x480. I just upgraded one side of my Apple XRAID, (connected directly via fibre channel) with seven, 750GB hard drives from Apple, drives designed for the XRAID, (came with there own sleds.)
Current Xserve RAID firmware version is at version 1.5.1/1.51c
Before the upgraded drives, no issues with dropped frames, (drives 1-7) the other side of the same RAID has no problems, (currently running 250GB drives, drives 8-14.) All sleds are populated with drives of the same capacity, (respective to each side.)
The drives were formated using the Xserve RAID Admin software and mounted using Apples Disk Utilities, Journaling turned off. The final formated capacity of the RAID on drives 1-7 is 4.1TB.
When I capture to the drives on the upgrade side, I get dropped frames. When capturing to the other side, no issues, works great. I checked the settings for performance and they are the same for both sides, as follows:
Use Controller Write Cashe - ON
Allow Host Cashe Flushing - OFF
Use Drive Write Cashe - ON
Use Steady Streaming Mode - OFF
Read Prefetch: 128 stripes (8 MB/disk)
My capture box is an AJA I/o and has never given me dropped frames till now, but only on the side of the RAID that has the new 750GB drives. I also have another RAID that uses 500GB drives on both sides and it work just fine as well, (no dropped frames) using the same performance settings in XRAID utilities.
Any suggestion on why these new Apple drives modules are dropping frame would be very much appreciate. Again 7 new 750GB drives from Apple w/sleds having dropped frame issues.

I'm capturing in 10-bit to avoid loss of quality from analog sources like BetaCam SP as well as line 21 must be part of the captured file, because it contains line 21 for captioning. Eight bit has a banding issue that I can't have in the final product and 10-bit doesn't have this issue.
Source quality is maintained completely when working in 10-bit uncompressed, as well as the captioning data that I need, which is stripped out of the captured video latter. Captioning software can read line 21 of the raster area, of the captured file.
Source video is from BetaCam SP, DVC Pro and DVCam.
The RAID is an Apple Xserve RAID, connected via Fibre channel directly, (no xsan.)
I also create high quality QuickTime Streaming files from these source files, the higher the quality of the source video the the better the streaming files look when created.
I have never had any problem capturing till I installed these new drives from Apple.
The RAID is as stated above, is an Apple Xserve RAID, connect via a fibre channel card in a Mac Pro 3.0GHz tower, (no xsan is used, due to connecting directly to the XRAID.)

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

Adding Additional Drives to 3.55 Xserve RAID

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