Advice on Xserve Raid

I need advice please. I want to buy the following second hand. is this a worthwhile buy or is it an old model of Xserve RAID? Can 400GB HDs be put in in place of the 250 GB?
Xserve RAID Chassis
14x250GB Hard Drives
2 SFP Controllers w/ 512MB Cache ea
2 Battery Cache Modules
2 Power Supplies
2 Cooling Modules
Rail Kit
2 Apple AC Power Cables
The owner will also throw in the PCI SFP card (pulled from the Xserve that ran this array) and SFP cables.
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

The Xserve RAIDs haven't changed physically since they were upgraded from the 180 GB drives (which used an HSSDC2 connector instead of the SFP connector that the current ones use).
You can use larger modules (up to 500 GB) but if you want full functionality (i.e. notification of drive failures) and optimal performance you need to purchase full Apple Drive Modules. Removing the 250's from the modules and replacing them with your own drives may give up some functionality, and it will certainly void the warranty on those drives. To use drives larger than 250 GB, you need to ensure you're on the latest firmware version -- 1.5 as of this note. You can check the firmware version using the RAID admin application.
As far as the 250's... in general the drives are probably good for about 3 years of 24x7 use. So that's about 26,000 hours. In RAID Admin, with the 1.5 firmware, you can check the power on hours of each drive. So I'd advise checking this, and based on the number, decide whether you want to upgrade, depending on whether you really need more capacity than the 2.8 TB usable that 14x250 will give you in a RAID 50 configuration.

Similar Messages

What to do with our Xserve RAID, moving forward - Need Advice.

We have an 3.5 TB Xserve RAID (14 drives - 250 GB each, split into two 7-drive volumes). As many others have, we've moved into more HD and tapeless workflow. The Xserver RAID was purchased really for one HD project with DVCPRO HD back in 2004 and hasn't really been used since except for backup storage.
I'd really like to move us into a SAN system, but am curious about others' perspectives on populating our Xserve RAID with 1 TB or greater drives now or get a different RAID setup. We've moved to Mac Pros, but the Xserve RAID is still dedicated to just one G5. I am doing some reading on setups such as the EVO and CalDigit, but haven't setup a SAN. It's time though.
We have three post machines - two editorial and one sound station. I could really use some insight on how to use our setup in a SAN scenario or what's the cheapest way we can get into a SAN workflow. Granted, drives are cheap these days, but it's so inefficient copying data between two machines to make sure we have a copy of the same media.
Thanks for any input folks.

+I'd really like to move us into a SAN system, but am curious about others' perspectives on populating our Xserve RAID with 1 TB or greater drives now or get a different RAID setup.+
I'll start with the fact that 750GB are the absolute max you'll be able to put into the Xserve RAID. Compatible 750 PATAs are really hard to find (and are expensive when you can find them) so that avenue makes little sense. I think you should really be thinking in terms of new hardware at this point. I know several people who run XSAN and are much happier with the Promise RAIDs they have now over the older Xserve RAIDs.
Which hardware and SAN software you should be looking at I'll leave up to someone with more modern experience in the video editing realm- I've been out of it for too many years now.
My $.02,
=Tod

Need second Xserve RAID, need advice

We have 1 Xserve RAID with 14 x 400Gb Drives, It is RAID 50
we are rapidly using up the space and need to know the easiest method for adding capacity.
We want the two RAIDs to show up as a single volume, so when we buy the second Xserve RAID will it need to be the same capacity as the first i.e 14 x 400Gb drives?
Also what is the procedure for adding this second RAID, will it involve backing up the data, wiping and rebuilding both RAIDs as RAID 50. or is there a way to do this without wiping data?
Anyone who has been in this position I would be grateful of their advice

First off, ideally the arrays should be the same size. Mixing drive sizes in an array is never a good idea. Usually the RAID controller will base the array on the smallest volume in the set and just use whatever it needs from the others, leaving the rest of the space unused (and inaccessible). e.g. if you try to RAID a 500GB volume and a 750GB volume, the 750GB volume will be treated like a 500GB volume and you lose the extra 250GB.
By far the safest option is to do as you describe - backup the data, rebuild the array and restore the data.
There is one other option, though, that might work, but I'd still backup the data before trying it.
diskutil has an addToRAID option which allows the addition of an extra drive to a RAID set. I've only ever used it on RAID 1 mirrors, never on a RAID 0 stripe, so I don't know if it'll work, but it might be worth trying. You don't have anything to lose.
Note that this kind of expansion isn't really viable long-term. If you expect to do this frequently you might consider alternative options like XSAN which can add any sized volume to a virtual pool of storage, growing organically.

Volumes folder on my xserve raid

Hey all!
When my network users login, they can see the root level of my xserve raid. Shouldn't this ve hidden?
What if someone decides to trash my Volumes folder or decides to make any folder they want?
When I try to disable sharing on the root level, of course, the subfolders are inacessible?
Any advice, please?

I assume you mean when your network users log into their workstations they mount the XServe RAID volume shared via some host on the network, right?
If that's the case your solution is to just change the sharepoints on the server to share subdirectories on the XServe RAID rather than the entire RAID.
Use Workgroup Manager to designate other sharepoints on the server. You'd need to look at how the clients are mounting the RAID in order to determine what changes you need to make there.
BTW you can't delete the /Volumes directory, so don't worry about that part.

Help on Setting up Xserve Raid

In our department we have three MacPro's, and one G5 Quad. We want to add an Xserve Raid to store and serve hi-res image files to each workstation. There is a company wide network (intranet) to which we have aready added the workstations, along with printers, however our IT people do not support the Mac platform and we are on our own as far as getting the Xserve Raid in the mix.
I am looking for advice as to how best to set it up and what sort of addition hardware or software we might need.
MacPro Mac OS X (10.4.8) 4gig ram
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I'd concur that it's generally a bad idea to use a production machine as a file server. OS X is fairly stable though. Worst case will likely be you'd loose the file server if an errant application hung up the finder. I can't remember the last time I've had an OS X box lock up solid.. though they do occassionally become unusable from the console.
If you're really budget constrained, put it on the tower. Just be careful about the Fibre controller. Apple has made PCI-X and PCI-E versions over the years.
As far as whos controller to buy, Apple's isn't just competative, it's a steal. It's a 2Gb/channel controller and it runs over Copper (not real fiber optic). You can find cheaper FC cards but they are 1Gb per channel. There are also 4Gb per channel cards.. these will generally fall back to 2 or 1 Gb per channel but they are VERY expensive. FC has come down a lot but it's not unusual to find cards with the same specs as Apple's for twice the price. At least one of our sys admins puts Apple's cards in his x86 Linux servers because they are the cheapest cards he can get. (they also work in Windows 2003 machines since they are just rebranded cards from another vendor.. we're running one in a Dell next door.. as a test for the XSan we're building).

Double-clicking on a file on Xserve RAID opens different file...

Hi,
This may or may not be the correct place to post this message. I am working with an Xserve RAID connected to an Xserve running OS X Server 10.4.10. I have experienced being in a directory and double-clicking on an Indesign file type and the content from a completely diferrent file (jpg) opens in it's place as the Indesign file. The corresponding jpg, which is from the same directory, seems unaffected. The data from the Indesign file is lost and replaced with the content from the jpg. Very strange. I saw this a couple of months ago and running Disk Warrior on the RAID, rebuilding the directory, seemed to have worked. I would like to know more about why this is happening and to know if there is a solution once and for all.
I did run DiskWarrior again today, so I will probably not be able to re-produce this for a while (hopefully never )
Any advice or suggestions welcome...
Thank you,
Sean

This might be related to 10.4.10.
We experience similar behaviour on 10.4.10 (and on some rare 10.3.9 systems)
So you could consider downgrading to 10.4.9 or wait for 10.4.11

3TB Storage - Alternative to Xserve RAID

Do anybody have any suggestions for alternative storage other than the Xserve RAID?
I'm looking to install an affordable 3TB RAID5 into a clients site, and they don't need a full Xserve RAID as of yet. Pricing and reliability is key also.
Any advice is appreaciated.
Thanks,
David

Hi
United Digital have something which may fit the bill:
http://www.united-digital.co.uk/index.php?pref=73
Hope this helps – Tony

XServe Raid and QLogic Switch

First off, I have no idea what any of this stuff does.
Okay, now that that's out of the way...
I have an XServe Raid divided into 4 partitions. Three computers connect to it via a QLogic San Switch 5200. Computer1 sees two partitions. Computer2 sees one partition and computer3 sees one partition.
Computer1 still sees both of it's partitions but Computers 2 & 3 cannot see their partitions.
Now, I think the problem is with the switch. The XServe seems to be fine from everything I can tell.
I've tried troubleshooting the switch but can't even connect to it. All of this to just let you guys know what's going on.
At this point I just want to get my video files off of the XServe partitions that can't be seen so... my question is this:
If I remove the switch from the equation and just plug the XServe directly into the back of my G5 will all four partitions show up so I can get this data off?
I just don't know enough about these things to know what would happen if I did that and want to make sure that nothing strange will happen!
Any advice you guys can give would be SO much appreciated.
Kip

Camelot,
This post totally helped me fix the problem. I had no idea what LUN masking was and when I saw that section in the RAID admin I didn't click it because not knowing what it was I didn't want to accidentally mess anything up. So yeah, I plugged the raid straight into the computer using the copper fibre channel cables and only saw two of the 4 partitions or I guess "slices." So, that made me think that your idea of the LUN masking option was probably right!
I went to that area and yes, it was all set up with various ports seeing certain slices etc. I was able to go around to the two new computers and find their World Wide Port Names and assign those to specific slices. I'm so happy and I've learned all kinds of new stuff!
Something I do think is odd...
We replaced two computers that were connected to the XServe Raid and just took the fibre cable from the old and plugged it into the new. This of course is where the problem came in because the cards in the new computers have different WWPNs than the old. The funny thing is, it worked for a while. The drives showed up on the new computers... until we took a power hit and the XServe powered off and then came back up. So, it's like it doesn't look at the port name while it's on.. just when it first turns on. So it didn't seem to notice that the port names had changed until then.
Seems kinda odd to me but.. hey, it all seems to work!
So yeah, thank you so much. I've learned a lot here!
Kip Gordon
Memphis, TN

XSERVE RAID - copying to array causes "error -50"

I am a n00b when it comes to administering an XSERVE RAID, so this may be something you can easily answer...
I have a brand new XServe with XSERVE RAID attached using a fibre channel card. The upper controller is connected to the left-side of the array, array 1, while the right-side of the controller is connected to the lower controller, array 2. Each array is 4.08 TB, the entire array is stocked with 750GB HDDs.
Array 1 has no problems copying, deleting, etc. Array 2 times out after I try to copy files, either across the network or using an external FW800 drive (2TB) from LaCie. I am trying to dump a lot of video data, and it blows up giving me an error -50. After that, I can't delete or do anything. Initially I thought this was due to ownership/file permissions but that doesn't make a difference. The external drive copies to Array 1 with no issues either. Any advice?

Any updates on this? I think I am experiencing something similar.
We have a Xserve RAID that has 1 array for our file server and we have just added 5 750GB drives to the right side of the RAID for a 2nd array. I spent most of the Thanksgiving break dealing with crashes and corrupt drives in Array 2 trying to migrate the files from the original array to the new array.
Array 1 works just fine, but if I try to copy large files to the 2nd array things go haywire and the server usually "crashes". If I use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy Array 1 to our Wiebetech RAID box things are fine, however if I use the same process to copy Array 1 to Array 2 and even the Wiebetch box to Array 2, then the server "crashes". I say crashes since I don't really know what is going on. When I come back to check on things the server has locked up and isn't responding to anything or has restarted and I am back at the login screen. Array 2 will have been "corrupted" and won't mount unless I reformat via disk utility.
In the RAID Admin events the only thing I get is that both controller 1 and 2 have gone down and are back up. The system log on the sever looks fine.
Just trying to see if it was a cable or some other hardware issue.
Thanks
Carl

Newbie here...Need help for XServe RAID w/ XSAN in Vid Editing environment

We're establishing an XSAN environment for video editing work flow. We're not new to SAN technology or video editing, but we are new to Xserve RAIDs, XSAN technology, and marrying them together in a production environment.
We have an XServe RAID at 14x750GB configuration. 1 Xserve metadata server, 1 Xserve Quicktime server, and 4 editing stations (2 MacPro's, 2 G5's) that are in the fiber channel fabric. Each machine has dual channel 4GB cards.
My PLEA for help concerns any advice this community can offer on RAID configuration, and XSAN configuration to achieve maximum performance. Settings, configurations, etc.
XServe, XServe RAID, XSAN, MacPro, G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Were on the same boat but more like a life jacket
We only need the Fibre for back-up.
We have a single Avid Adrenaline on MacPro.
One Xserve that basically acts as a server for fonts, audioclips, photocatalog and minor back-up via gigabit ethernet.
Three G5s/MacPro/PC with 2/4GB FC installed.
One 10.5 TB Xserve RAID.
Last but not least a QLogic 1400 SAN box for Fibre.
Nothing is installed yet as were waiting on our Apple rep for some answers with Xsan.
Were not serving anything as far as external network and everything stays within the confines of our studio.
My question is that are we missing anything other than maybe getting more ports on the SAN.
We can live with a few workstations in the fabric.
Thanks in advance
XServe Mac OS X (10.4.6) OSX Server

Xserve RAID Admin Tool 1.5.1 not quite working

I have an Xserve RAID that's currently at firmware 1.3.2/1.26a according to Xserve RAID Admin Tool 1.5.1. However, when I try to upgrade the firmware to 1.5.1 via the RAID Admin Tool 1.5.1, it just doesn't do anything--it accepts the .xfb file and then...nothing. Quitting out of the the Admin Tool and restarting still shows the firmware at 1.3.2/1.26a. Same thing if I shut down and restart the Xserve RAID from the RAID Admin tool. Any tips? There's nothing stored on the RAID system yet (the array hasn't even been created--it's a blank system) and nothing is attached to it either (I've just plugged in the ethernet links to format it first before I start attaching an Xserve G5 to it). Also, even though the lower controller is showing green and I have an ethernet cable plugged into it, I can't get any info out of it nor can I configure it with an IP address. Only the top controller seems to allow some configuration such as IP address.

Okay, I've solved the problem.
Basically, the issue was that the lower controller wasn't seated right despite it showing a green light in RAID Admin. When I went to visually inspect it, I noticed that despite what RAID Admin 1.5.1 claimed, its light wasn't even on, let alone green. And since the lower controller handles slots 8-14 of an Xserve RAID and my slots 8-14 are totally unpopulated (empty) at the moment, it was never noticed. Now that I've reseated the lower controller, everything is visually showing green across the board and the firmware upgrade is proceeding as expected and it has upgraded the firmware from 1.3.2/1.26a to 1.5.1/1.5.1c complete with autorestart of both upper and lower controller modules.
Basic lesson learned: RAID Admin lies. If possible, visually inspect the box itself!
Thanks to all who responded.

Switching to Xserver/Xserve RAID

Hi boys and girls...
I was looking for a little assistance in switching over to Xserve. Let me give you some background info first.
Were a small studio in London, with only 11 people in-house and the majority working externally whether free-lance, from home or from another country etc. Were mostly Mac based, though 4 machines are those little beige pc things all running XP 2002. At the minute its 1 G5 and a collection of G4 tower's and G4 power book's, G4 cube's and so on. Were all connected to a G4 server running Mac OS X Server 10.2.8 with a very small dual 120GB HD raid thing running Retrospect.
Our problem is, this system was set up some time ago and were starting to outgrow it.
What were looking for is a way to backup all of our current work and archive all of our old work. Most users like to work directly off the server as theres so much file sharing between the macs and pc's, directly updating files so there isnt any duplication etc.
First question, is it possible (and a good/bad idea ?) to have 10-15 users working directly from a Mac server, that stores the archived work for users to reference and also current work which is backed up to tape and duplicated (as we currently have) to another HD?
Secondly, Is the ideal way to be running things? Is there a more efficent way?
Finally, what kind of spec should we be looking at? There's such a huge difference between servers, while were willing to invest, we dont want to go crazy (maybe a little) on costs.
I look forward to your responses and thank you in advance
Marcus

There are certainly some drawbacks with your current setup that mean you should make some changes.
In general, there's nothing wrong with working with files directly off the server, however, 10.2.8 has some issues with multiple users accessing the same files at the same time, so you should look to move to 10.4 ASAP to address that issue, regardless of any other changes you make.
I am assuming that the remote users don't work this way - uploading/download files as appropriate - it would be painful to work off the server remotely.
The only real disadvantage with working with files directly off the server is that if a file is changed erroneously and saved, there's no easy backup.
If the file was copied to the local drive and saved, it's easy to roll back to the previous version by re-copying it from the server, but if that change is saved directly to the server the only rollback involves pulling out Retrospect.
The other change that would make a difference is installing a gigabit switch and connecting the server to it. Even if all the host systems don't have gigabit ethernet, the extra bandwidth to the server will definitely help.
As for a new server, 10-15 file sharing users are not likely to stress the server, do you don't need a top-of-the-line configuration.
You should first decide how much disk space you need. With 500GB drives, the XServe can handle up to 1.5TB on its own, without any additional XServe RAID. However, you might want to consider RAID (using RAID you're limited to 1TB of RAID 5 storage, or 500GB of mirrored storage in the box).
In addition to your current data usage, consider using an online disk backup where multiple copies of the data is stored on the server itself before (or in addition to) backing up to tape.
While tapes offer several long-term archive advantages, they really don't work so well for quick restores of a file or two. Having a snapshot of the last couple of days data online makes it trivial to step back a day or so without having to resort to tapes. This may mean, though, that your 100GB of data requires 200 or 300GB of disk space.
If you do decide than an XServe RAID is the right solution, consider getting it right-sized from the get-go rather than buying it small (e.g. 4 drives) and adding later. While it can be done, adding drives to an existing array is a PITA.
If you do opt for an XServe RAID, and you don't currently have any rack-mounted equipment, consider using a PowerMac G5 as your server rather than an XServe. While similar in terms of performance, the PowerMac can work out cheaper depending on configuration.

Can I move Array from one Xserve RAID to another and keep the data

I'd like to move a set of disk with an existing Array from one Xserve RAID to another. Can I simply shutdown both Xserve RAIDs and move the disk over, assuming I put the disk back in the same order?

Yes, you should be able to do this.
BE SURE YOU HAVE A BACKUP FIRST.

Clarification on how to use Xserve Raid and Fibre Channel without xsan.

First let me apologize for not responding earlier to your response, I tend to get busy and then forget to check back here.
Tod, the answer to your question is No, only one computer is accessing the xserve raid files at any one time and that is via Fibre Channel. However I do have the xserve raids set up as share points via ethernet.
Maybe I should turn that off and only access the files with the one computer that can connect via fibre channel.
I never thought of that. I will try that while I await for your answer, thanks again.
Todd Buhmiller
I have the following setup:
Xserve: 2x2Ghz Dual Core Intel Xeon, 5Gb of Ram, Running 10.5.8 Leopard Server
Xserve Raid with firmware version 1.5.1/1.51c on both controllers, and
Qlogic Sanbox 5600
Apple Fibre Channel Cards in Xserve, and Mac Pro Tower; Apple 2 Port 4Gbs Fibre Channel Card
Mac Pro Tower-Quad Core Intel Xeon 2.8Ghz, 16Gb of Ram, Running Snow Leopard 10.6.4
Here is the problem.
The directory for the xserve raids keep getting corrup, and I use disc warrior to rebuild them. Is there a way to keep the directories from getting corrupt? I am a few pieces of equipment before I can build an Xsan as that is the ultimate goal, but until then, I just need to be able to have the raids funciton as storage without having to rebuild the directories all of the time.
Anybody have any suggestions?
Thanks
Todd Buhmiller
Widescreen Media
Calgary, Alberta Canada
Tod Kuykendall
Posts: 1,237
From: San Diego
Registered: Oct 11, 2000
Re: Xserve Raid Mounts, Corrupt Directory tired of rebuilding directory
Posted: Jun 27, 2010 1:25 PM in response to: Todd Buhmiller
Are multiple computers accessing the same data on the RAID at the same time?
If so then NO. This is the source of your data corruption and I'm surprised if you were able to get all your data back every time if this is how you've been running your system. Each fibre channel assumes it has full and sole control of every volume it has mounted, no data arbitration is practiced and data corruption will occur if this assumption is wrong.
The only way this set-up will work is to use partitions or LUN masks so the volumes are accessed by one computer at any time. As long as one computer relinquishes control before another mounts it you will dodge arbitration issues but this is a dangerous game. If you screw up and mount an already mounted volume - and there is no easy way to tell if a volume is mounted - corruption will then occur. Sharing data simultaneous at fibre speeds is what XSAN does and to do this you need it.
HTH,
=Tod
Intel Xserve, G5 XServes, XRAID, Promise

+The xserve raids will mount automatically to any computer that I connect the qlogic fc switch to+
This is source of the corruption to your data. Any computer that attaches to a drive/partition via fibre channel assumes that it alone is in control of the drive and data corruption is inevitable.
+Is that the issue, should I disconnect the xserve from the fc switch and leave it connected via ethernet?+
Short answer: YES. The ethernet connections are fine because the server is controlling the file arbitration through the sharing protocol. Fibre channel connections assumes complete control over the partition and no arbitration of the file access is performed. It's like two people independently driving trying to drive the same car to different locations.
Depending on your set-up it is possible for the two machines to see and use different parts of the Xserve RAID storage but they cannot access the same areas without SAN doing the arbitration.
Hope that's clear,
=Tod

Can't copy files to Xserve Raid

Hello,
I'm having serious issues copying files to my work's Xserve Raid. When I try to copy files to it, it stalls for several minutes trying to copy, but making no progress, before giving an error saying:
"The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "filename" could not be read or written. (error code -36)"
When I click ok, I get disconnected from the Raid.
Any thoughts as to what could be happening?

What do your logs say? I'd check your afp (or whatever sharing mechanism you're using) and I'd keep an eye out for any fibre channel or LUN messages that might indicate connection/communication problems with RAID itself. (These might show up as LIP messages.)
Sounds to me like an underlying communications issue rather than a file sharing issue but without more information it's hard to say.
Good luck,
=Tod

Advice on Xserve Raid

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