Can I hook up a NAS via Fibre Channel?

I am building a Linux NAS to be accessed by my Macs. I've purchased fibre cards for all of my macs, an LSI fibre card for my Linux machine, and a McData 4400 fibre switch. I'm trying to configure my fibre network so I can share files from my NAS. I've got the fabric set up, but everything that I read is talking about using SAN software to connect to a SAN, not a NAS. I can't find any information at all on how to do what I want to do, or whether or not it's possible. Can someone please help me figure out how to set up this Fibre Channel network, or at least figure out if it's possible or not? Thank you!
-Ryan

Is what you want technically possible? Probably.
In an earlier era, you could have a network or an image scanner or other devices connected to a host via SCSI; via a storage bus. There was all manner of odd SCSI-connected gear. (Think of SCSI as expensive multi-host USB with big expensive cables and with expensive peripheral devices, and you'll have the general idea. And FWIW, SCSI is the underpinnings of USB.)
You would end up writing a whole lot of driver code for the devices and hosts you have, too.
Which is where folks end up with commercial SAN solutions, or with NAS solutions, and not with using a SAN as a network.
The various Fibre Channel controller vendors discussed but never seemed to have sorted out the network interface designs for their FC controllers.
If you want to roll your own storage arrays akin to the [Apple Xsan|http://www.apple.com/xsan> or the HP [MSA|http://h18000.www1.hp.com/storage/diskstorage/msa_diskarrays/sanarrays/index.html] or [EVA|http://h18000.www1.hp.com/storage/diskstorage/eva_diskarrays/evaarrays/index.html] SAN arrays, well, have at. You'll likely end up needing to write host disk drivers, as well as the firmware within the SAN controller. Networking drivers might be a bit more tricky; I haven't looked at those device interfaces in a while, and you'd need to tie those drivers into the host network stacks. Once you have some or all of that working, then the hosts can see the block storage out on the SAN. If you need sharing, you'll need to sort out a cluster or SAN file system to run atop the block storage or atop the network connection you've built; a file system that can coordinate distributed access.
Possible? Sure. On a budget? Probably not.

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How can I connect to a NAS via internet

I've been searching the forum for an answer and have found close but not quite. I'm running a Macbook on Snow leopard as is a friend that I am now working with. She (or rather, her husband) also has a NAS connected via a wireless router on a home network. We would like to load the files that we are both working from on the NAS so we are working from one set of master files. We both move around alot (btween Fance & Italy). Now, I can access the NAS easily from her computer on their network - the Mac picked it up automatically but now that I'm home, I can't seem to find it on my computer. I've tried putting the IP address of the NAS into Safari - error message, server not responding. I've also tried to connect to server via afp - same thing
My question is: how can we access the NAS via the internet? Does her husband have to specifically creat an account on the thing for me? I'm at a loss here as I have no experience of NAS devices.
Thanks in advance

The problem here is that you do not have direct access to items on their LAN. What you need to do is set up port forwarding on their router so that requests on whatever port the NAS uses are forwarded to the NAS from the router. The other way (probably more secure) to do it would be to set up virtual private networking (VPN) so that you can connect to their entire LAN as if you were part of it while actually on the Internet. The router would have to support this of course.
Best of luck.

Can't copy files to NAS via smb

I'm trying to move my Logic files to a NAS in a RAID 1 configuration prior to installation of Logic 9. I'm connecting via Samba. However, I'm continually getting this error message after only a few files are copied:
"The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items."
Going to the first file that did not copy, I can see that I have read/write permission for it. I've repaired permissions, verified disk, etc. with no luck. After numerous failed attempts, I tried copying the files in question to the desktop and it worked fine. I used these NAS drives two weeks ago to make disk images of both my iMac and MacBook prior to loading Snow Leopard, plus I ran built-in utilities on them, so I'm fairly sure they're working correctly.
I searched the forums and didn't see anything exactly like this, so any help you can provide is appreciated.
B

I'm having the same problem when trying to copy files to an SMB share on a OpenFiler based NAS. I noticed however, that if the files are in a folder, they will copy to the smb share without a problem. I can then move them out of the folder in the SMB share, delete them, etc. I can also create an empty folder on the share. The only thing I can't seem to do is copy up a regular file. I get this same error message. I have read that it may be a bug in 10.6.3? But curious is other tyes of NAS devices have a similar behavior...
-m

Can Time Machine back up Fibre Channel connected drives?

Hello All,
     I am running Mac OS X 10.7.5. I am trying to back up drives connected to my tower via fibre channel using Time Machine and am getting the exclusion error that others have been reporting on Lion and Mountain Lion. In Time Machine > Options, I select a fibre channel connected drive to include it in the next backup. It disappears from the exclusion list as it should AND the properly "estimated size of full backup" is created. I select "Save." However, when I select "Options" again, the fibre channel connected drive has been RE-EXCLUDED. This happens with all of the drives connected via fibre channel.
     All of the drives have unique UUIDs and display Connection Bus: Fibre Channel Interface and Connection Type: External in Disk Utility. All of the drives are formatted as "Mac OS Extended." The drives are all inside of a Facilis Terrablock 24D and are RAID5.
      Before updating to Lion, we were able to back up these drives via Time Machine successfully for many months.
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       Your time and help is greatly appreciated!
Best,
LALB

Others have reported the same issue. Apparently it doesn't work.

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

Xserve Raid will not mount - fibre channel link down

I came back from being out of town and my Xserve is running, but will not mount on the G5 tower via fibre channel. It was powered off and up again and still nothing. Apple tech says to reset raid controllers, however, I have sensitive data on the drives and lots of video/FCP projects on there. It has just run out of warranty and now asked to pay $199 per incident to get any help. I will gladly take any help.
Read the boards, ran Disk Utility and still did not show up.
Also, told the fibre cables tend to "burn out" but have yet to spend money if this is not the problem.
Thanks.

Resetting the controllers is non-destructive. However, if you power-cycled the array, that should take care of it.
told the fibre cables tend to "burn out"
I've never experienced (or heard of this) myself, and have never had a problem on any of my arrays, some of which have been running for years with zero problems. Of course, environment (especially heat) could play a part, but it seems a little bit of a stretch to me.
Does RAID Admin have anything to say about the RAID?

Can I add a NAS via ethernet to the Time Capsule network?

"I'm a PC," but am sick of spending all my time with Windows/Network conflicts and am getting ready to take the plunge into the Mac world (insert applause here).
My router/switch is old, and I want "n" wireless capability, so my plan here is to go whole hog and buy a Macbook Pro, an iMac, and a brand new network infrastructure including the 2TB Time Capsule. This way I will stay completely within the Apple family.
I have a Netgear ReadyNAS 2TB that I would like to have available as a second back-up drive on the network. It can only be on the network via ethernet (LAN). It cannot be plugged into the Time Capsule's USB port.
Will I be able to add this drive and get Time Capsule (and even Time Machine) to "play nice" with it? Can I even set the Time Machine on each computer to back up to this drive?
Or should I just sell the ReadyNAS and get a USB drive that will work with the time capsule?
Finally, there are only 3 ethernet ports on the TC. Can I add a switch?
Thanks for any help anyone can offer,
Shawn

BroncoCountry wrote:
Will I be able to add this [NAS] drive and get Time Capsule (and even Time Machine) to "play nice" with it? Can I even set the Time Machine on each computer to back up to this drive?
It's reasonable to expect your NAS drive to work when connected to your Time Capsule network. However, it will be difficult for you to use it for Time Machine backups. Apple only supports Time Machine network backups to the disk in a Time Capsule.
It's easy to have multiple computers backing up via Time Machine to the same Time Capsule.
Or should I just sell the ReadyNAS and get a USB drive that will work with the time capsule?
That's up to you. Keep in mind that Apple still doesn't want you to use that USB drive for Time Machine backups.
Finally, there are only 3 ethernet ports on the TC. Can I add a switch?
Yes.

HT4619 Can I hook up my mid-late 2011 imac to a digital cable box via hdmi?

Is it possible to hook up my imac via hdmi to a digital cablebox from comcast? Im tired of my old 19" crt tv and would love to watch cable on my imac.
ty

No... totally incompatible hardware.
To watch online, try Netflix Netflix - Watch TV Shows Online, Watch Movies Online
or Hulu > Watch Movies Online | Hulu

Can you hook two printers to the airport extreme

Can I hook up multiple printers to any of the airport devices? the middle one has more than one port - one for printer and one for hard drive. Can I put a printer in each port?

Hi - you can connect mutiple USB printers via a USB hub - you can also connect multiple printers to the ethernet ports on an Extreme or Time Capsule - you can do the same with an Express with an ethernet switch - you can also do it wirelessly

Can you hook up to ethernet

Can you hook up ethernet to express; have access to multiple computers, pick the one you want, drill down to that itunes library and play the associated songs and playlists? Also, is there a way to play internet radio; lastly can you control this via an iphone? if so how? is there an app that can allow users to access thier windows computer and see thier itunes library?

Yes it sounds correct. They can be Windows computers, they just have to be running fairly recent versions of iTunes and they all have to be on the same network. Wired or wireless makes no difference.
If you have an Express it can also join your network wirelessly or via Ethernet. They can be configured to connect to your network either way.
With the iPhone's Remote app you simply click the gear icon and click "add an iTunes library". You go to that computer and type in the code to authorize it. Sharing has to be enabled in iTunes Preferences also. Home Sharing uses your Apple ID so the other computers all have to use the same one.
Also, if you are using Windows you will almost certainly have to configure its firewall or anti-virus software. Such things are designed to hinder all sorts of communication and they're all different so you may be on your own trying to figure that out.
Apple has lots of instructions regarding Home Sharing, if you're not getting anywhere start with this:
http://www.apple.com/support/homesharing/

Dear Community, how can I connect SCSI tape recorder via USB to iMac ? Is there any adapter/converter on the market now ? Cheers, Marek

Dear Community,
how can I connect SCSI tape recorder via USB to iMac ?
Is there any adapter/converter on the market now ?
Cheers, Marek

Thanks Jan.
Actually the reason to use Quantum SCSI tape recorder is to back-up big amount of data (propriety movies footage) both on PC (what is quite easy, using SCSII host adapter with VHDCI 68 connector) and iMac what seems to be not easy. All my search by Google leads to that conclussion, they finished production of SCSI-to-USB or FireWire because somebody stopped to produce chips to covert protocols. So even buying noe second-hand adapter, no guaranty it's still working with Lion (nobody is developing drivers anymore). Strange is, nobody or just a few are using SCSII (Ultra 320) devices (while the transfer is not bad, 320 MBps what is 2560 Mbps, so the only limitation is tape recording (some 80 MBps) not an interface. Using compression mode I can (and I do) record 1,6 TB of footage data. However quite slow, is safe and cheap, comparing with any HD storage solution. USB 2 is much more limited.
I'm using Time Capsule for buck-up. But even 3 TB one day will be full of data, then old back-ups will be eaten by new once, what is not good idea for archives. I'm using another 2TB NAS HD (2x2TB RAID 1), but this is also going to be full soon.
Of course, you are right, the option is another machine (OSX,Win,Linux or Solaris) equipped with SCSII controller. But this requires another machine, just for back-up time to time, and in practice iMac folders must be shared with that small auxiliary machine because amount of data practically excluding even temporary data collection on auxiliary machine. And it must be transfer by wire, not WIFI, my only network. Tape recording is in my case really good, professional solution, isn't it?
Anyway, if somebody has similar requirements as me, and found the solution for SCSI, please let me know. So far, follow Jan's idea, I'm thinking about some embeded mini PC, fanless, equipped with slot for SCSI, with SOME smart system on-board, to deal with iMac for type recording. The option is previous Apple model, but to be honest, I became Mac/OSX user 4 years ago. I fell in love with Mac, but my knowledge about previous models is based on Google....
My desk becomes full of boxes. Do you know how big Quantum TC-L42BX is ? Is very big. And now another box.....another keyboard....another screen... And one small adapter could solve the problem. Eh....
Best regards,
Marek

I am trying to play my digital music off a hard drive onto my home stereo. I would like to know if the mac mini can just hook to my processor and play music through the processor(preamp) on my home stereo speakers?

I currently have a nice home stereo component system. I also have a 500 GB external hard drive loaded with music. I am looking for a way to play the music off this Hard Drive onto my home stereo system. I currently have a WD home entertainment box that I can play movies that I download off the Internet on my TV, of course piped through my home stereo for the sound. I would like to know if the mac-mini could be used in this form also. Just have the HD hooked to it, the TV would become my monitor and the mac mini would play the music ... RANDOMLY ... with the use of iTunes. This of course would be hooked up to the home system with an hdmi cable and the HD hooked up through a USB connection.
Just would like to know if this could work?

Yes. Is the short answer.
You can directly connect the speaker out port of the Mac mini to an input on the AV Receiver which then feeds your speakers. This would be an audio only solution. If you use a TOS-Link connection this will be a pure digital connection ensuring the best quality (important for audiophiles).
You can if you wish connect the video from the Mac mini to the AV Receiver, and if you have a Mac mini with HDMI or a Mini Displayport you can run the audio and video via a single cable. (Older models would use two cables, the aforementioned TOS-Link pus a DVI to HDMI cable.)
If you do connect the video output from the Mac to the AV Receiver you can then display this on your TV, and have as one possibility iTunes displayed with perhaps one of the iTunes visualisers playing along with the music. Another possibility would be to use FrontRow on the Mac.
A different approach would be to have the Mac mini stream over a network to a device e.g. the Sonos Zoneplayer which is then connected to the AV Receiver. An AirPort Express is also able to do this.

Yosemite can't connect to my NAS & other weirdness

Hi
I'm running Yosemite 10.10 on an Early 2011 15" Macbook Pro i7 with 8GB of RAM. The machine is connected to the network via Wi-Fi and my network is managed by a SKY router. All devices are configured to use DHCP to obtain their IP address from the router.
I have two NAS boxes on my network, a Western Digital MyCloud and a Buffalo Linkstation Pro.
Since upgrading to Yosemite I cannot access the Linkstation NAS box.
I can ping it on the network and I can call up the configuration pages in a web browser using the ip address, I can also access it from windows devices.
However if I try to connect to it using my mac it fails every time.
I use Go->Connect to Server then put in the details of the share, I'm prompted for a user name and password as expected but then the process stalls for several minutes before finally failing with the following error message.
'There was a problem connecting to the server "xxxxxxx"
Check the server name or IP address and then try again. If you continue to have problems, contact your system administrator.'
I've tried specifying smb, cifs, and even afp in the connection attempts but they all fail.
The Western Digital NAS works OK although it's a bit slow to make the initial connection.
The other weird thing is that my Macbook keeps changing it's NETBIOS name and I don't know why. I named the machine ChristophersMBP but it keeps getting numbers appended to the end of it. It's currently up to ChristophersMBP5.
The whole thing is very frustrating especially as if I boot Windows 7 using bootcamp it attaches to the share without any problems.
And help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

It looks like I've found, if not a fix, then at least a work around.
I was searching around the web and found other people having the same problem with their machine name changing.
The fault seemed to be caused by "Wake on LAN" being enabled on the machine. I checked my machine and, sure enough it was enabled.
Quite why I'd want wake on LAN enabled on a laptop I'm not sure so I had no problem with disabling it.
I disabled wake on LAN, renamed my computer again and rebooted it.
Now I find I can successfully connect to my NAS box!
This is a guess but I wonder if the renaming was causing problems with DNS or reverse DNS lookups?

HT1349 Can I hook my iPad up to my tv using the USB cord if my tv has a USB input?

Can I hook iPad up to tv with charging cord if tv has USB input to watch Netflix?

Not as far as i know. There's no protocol to send video out of the iPad via that 30 pin USB port. There have been some people saying they can hook their iPad up to their TV with the HDMI connector, but it seems that just as many have problems with getting both video and audio.

Is it possible to directly connect two Xserves with a Promise VTrak E610fD via Fibre?

I have two Xserves and I'd like to connect them with a Promise VTrak E610fD. As this storage has two controllers, I'd like to connect both Xserve with both controllers. Is this setup possible? Can I access (read and write) the same disk array with both Xserves simultaneously (Xsan?) or do I have to create two separate arrays?

Hello bleistift, and welcome to the AppleBoards,
Fibre channel is SCSI which means that any device connected by fibre assumes it is in sole control of that device. When you attach more than one machine via fibre both machines assume they are in control and unexpected behaviors and data corruption ensues. SAN (like Apple's XSAN) provides a layer of arbitration over the shares allowing multiple fibre connections to play nicely with one another while still being connected over fibre.
You could easily connect two machines to a single RAID box if they are accessing different RAID volumes at the same time, but once you start connecting to the same data at the same time you need SAN.
HTH,
=Tod

Can I hook up a NAS via Fibre Channel?

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