Good article from Tom Yager on Xserve RAID drives

Since "Why is an Apple module more expensive than a drive I can buy at CompUSA?" is a very common question here, this is good background:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisemac/archives/2007/02/applesxserver.html

Also are there any issues with upgrading to 750GB drives?
In addition to the drives, you'll also need to upgrade the firmware on the RAID. If you're running the same firmware as when you bought the unit then it'll only support drives up to the then-current maximum - in this case it sounds like 250GB.
Installing the latest firmware will give you support for larger drives.

Similar Messages

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...

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.

Xserve Raid Drive

Hello everyone, im going to need an answer pretty fast because im going to need to make a decision today. Can any PATA Drive (lets say a 320gb) work in the xraid? I know its stupid but im new to this

If the SMART will talk to the XRAID it will work. There are drives that "know to work" so people usually stick with those to save buying 16 drives that turn out not to work. Search the other threads for specific drive models but they are getting scarce to non-existent in certain sizes. There was a model 500GB drives that are still being produced that a couple of people reported to work recently.
=Tod

Data Rate from XServe Raid

Hello all,
I have what I thought would be a simple question, but I've found nothing anywhere to answer it.
We have a new G5 Quad and an XServe Raid connected via Fibre Channel with 4 500 GB drive modules. Our Video capture card is the Decklink Extreme SD, but my employer has found a firm that will transfer our Cinealta HDCam tapes at full HD onto hard drives for transfer into our system. He then wants to work in full 10 bit uncompressed 4:2:2 HD (1080i) for editing.
I have tried several RAID configurations and used the Decklink Drive Speed Test Utility and found that the fastest data rate I am able to achieve is around 75 MB/sec (using RAID 0), which, according to the utility is only good for about 15 fps at 10 bit 4:2:2 1080.
So my question is this: How many Xserve Raid drive modules striped as RAID 0 would we need to achieve the 182.3 MB/sec data rate (according to the FCP manual) required to edit in full 10 bit 4:2:2 at 1080i at 24-30 fps? Is it simply a matter of doubling the 4 we now have? or is there some other calculation that would be required?
Thanks for the help

14
Figure conservatively that each fully loaded controller (7 drives) in an Xserve RAID will give you 80 to 100 MB/sec. 160 to 200 MB/sec for both controllers fully loaded.
With an Xserve RAID, RAID 5 will give you almost the same bandwidth as RAID 0, so there's insufficient reason to forego the file protection of RAID 5.
Then, when you stripe the two sides together in Disk Utility, you should be getting more than 200 MB/sec, enough for a single stream of uncompressed 1080i, but probably not enough for two streams. It depends.

Mac Pro + XServer RAID + FCP2 + Configuration

Hello all. This is my first post here.
I will soon buy a MacPro por video editing on Final Cut Pro 2 and I was wondering if you could help sort out if the configuration I've chosen is the best.
I'll show you the configurations I thought first:
*Mac Pro*
- Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
- 4GB (4 x 1GB)
- Mac Pro RAID Card
- 2 x 500gb HDD
- ATI Radeon X1900 XT
- 20" Apple Cinema Display + 23" Apple Cinema HD Display
- Dual-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCIe
*XServer RAID*
- 2000GB ADM (4x500GB Ultra ATA)
- Cache Battery Back-up Modules
- Dual-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCIe
My idea:
A) The MAC Pro I'll be used for 3D rendering and video editing. I'll configure the 2x500GB with RAID1 (mirroring) for a fail safe env, leaving my with 500GB of available space
B) XServer RAID will be connected directly to the Mac Pro (for now) via the fiber optic cards and we'll provided additional storage.
C) For projects stored on the XServer RAID (videos for example) I must be able to access and edit directly with FCP2 without having to pass it to the Mac Pro
D) I was thinking of using RAID5 for XServer RAID configuration leaving me with 2.64 x 500GB (as described on support faqs) = 1.3 TB of disk space with a reasonable fail safe environment (RAID5 with 3 drives allows one drive to fail and offers a good recovery rate).
OK. My questions:
1) Is my MacPro config enough for FCP2 + 3D Rendering ?
2) Can I use the XServer RAID directly with Mac Pro or do I need aditional software / hardware?
3) Can I connect the fiber optic from one board to the other without using the router? (on google the answers I found were very vague...)
4) Is the RAID5 the best choice (in terms of performance vs data recovery) for video editing. The RAID5 specs states that random writes to disk are slower that other RAID configs. Is RAID 50 (5+0) a better choice?
5) I opted for the 4 HDD config on XServer but I could change to a 7 HDD config for a similar total space.
I'm sorry for the long post, but I can't find anywhere suitable information about this questions.
Hope to hear from you.
Thanks in advance!

We have a ton of Xserve's and Xserve RAID's at my work. As of right now they're all directly connected to our servers with Fibre Channel cables (NOT fiber optic, totally different animal.) We finally just bought our first Fibre Channel switch to hookup five 10.5TB RAIDS and a huge tape loader for backups. The RAID's work perfectly when directly connected and are very fast. The only reason that you would need a Fibre Channel switch is if you want multiple machines to be able to access the array without using network shares.
I really don't think that just four drives will give you the performance that you're looking for. In order to get good performance out of a RAID5 you NEED as many spindles as you can get. If you're stuck to a budget if would probably go to smaller drives but get more of them. I think you've already discovered this but if you want to do a RAID5+0, you'll need to populate drives on both sides of the RAID as they are physically seperated.
As far as I know, you can only get Xserve RAID Drive Modules from Apple as they do some pretty intensive testing on every drive before they ship. You can't even buy empty modules, you can buy blanks but they don't include the required electronics.

Xserve RAID and windows

How do I configure a Windows PC to access Xserve RAID drives?

Kind of a vague question...
Are you trying to attach the Windows PC directly to the XServe RAID?
Or is the XServe RAID attached to a Mac and you're trying to access the data over a network?
In the first case you should just need a fiber channel card in the Windows PC and run a fiber channel cable from the PC to the RAID - depending on how the RAID is configured, it should just appear.
In the second case you need to share the XServe RAID volumes via SMB. The specifics of how to do this vary based on which version of Mac OS X Server you're running.

Want to make sure I replace RAID drive correctly.

In my previous post, I mentioned I had a drive go out and now my system will crash whenever I start my G5 while the fibre channel cables are connected. I'm assuming this is because it automatically mounts the Xserve RAID drive. When I disconnect the fibre cables, it starts up fine and I can go into the RAID admin and see the system and administer it.
Today I got my replacement drive. I've been reading a ton but some re-assurance that I'm doing it correctly would be great. If I've read everything correctly, I should be able to just install the new drive without risk but, if I read everything correctly, I will need to go into the RAID admin utilities and select "make drive available for use" and make the new one the backup?
There is something about "unmounting" the RAID first but it's not mounted or connected by the fibre channel at this time. How/should I do something else to disconnect it? Will it continue to crash my machine at restart or how do I connect it and not have it mount?
Help please
Bart

+I should be able to just install the new drive without risk but, if I read everything correctly, I will need to go into the RAID admin utilities and select "make drive available for use" and make the new one the backup?+
Depending on how the RAID sees the disk it may or may not use it right away. Essentially if it suspects it might be part of another RAID it will not use it until you go into RAID Admin and mark it "available for use". Other than that step it should immediately use the new drive to rebuild the RAID.
+There is something about "unmounting" the RAID first but it's not mounted or connected by the fibre channel at this time. How/should I do something else to disconnect it?+
No, that's talking about unmounting it from the desktop - but with your fibre detached you don't have anything to worry about there.
+Will it continue to crash my machine at restart or how do I connect it and not have it mount?+
I would powerdown the Xserve, attach the cables and then reboot it to be safe. But I wouldn't go so far as to restart the XRAID (unless someone else here with more experience suggests that you do).
Assuming the malformed disk was the source of the crashing hopefully everything will return to normal.
Good luck, let us know how it goes!
=Tod

Accessing Xserve Raid from 2 Xserves

I am in a bind and need a temporary solution. I have an Xserve Raid with 2 disk partitions, one on each channel. These are currently connected directly to 1 Xserve using the Fibre Channel cards. I know one partition is bad and won't go into the details. Can I simply divide the fibre channels between 2 Xserves without using a fibre channel switch? The upper controller with dirves 1-7 has the falty partition and the lower controller with drives 8-14 has the stable partition.
thanks
Jeff

The correct way to share a XRAID side is with a switch... in fact the only way I know of to do this is with a switch.
But digging deeper than that whether you share it with a switch (or some other way) you cannot simply give any two clients access to the same data without some form of arbitration. Attaching two (or more) clients to a raw data source over fibre allows multiple opening/writes access to a file which immediately results in data corruption and loss.
You can share the volume over ether from one Xserve to another because then the access is arbitrated by AFP (or SMB whatever protocol you use) but if you simply want to plug clients into raw data then you need XSAN or some other type of SAN arbitration. And SAN is no "temporary" solution to any problem - it is a full fledged project unto itself.
Good luck,
=Tod
G5/2.0x2, Dual XServes x2, XRAID, beige G3 501Mhz

Copy from xServe RAID to firewire drive is crashing my OS...

Fellow mac users,
I am a relatively new OS X system admin and I am having a hard time copying files from my xServe RAID to a firewire drive to do an intermittent backup. When I try to copy the files over it crashes the OS without fail. I was wondering if anyone has ever heard or seen of this before? It's rather discouraging when all I'm trying to do is get a quick backup of the RAID which is only 300 gb in size currently.
Our hardware is very good, we have a dual 2.3 G5 model with 3 gb of RAM so I know the hardware can handle a simple finder copy. The only idea I have is to do a "ditto" in the terminal. I thought I'd ask for input from the resident apple sages before trying that. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas for me?
Thanks for any help,
Thomas
xServe Dual G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Be sure you have the external drive connected when you boot from the installer disc. Use the OS X Installer One disc that came with your MacBook. After you boot from the installer and select your language select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
After DU loads select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) for the external drive from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Click on the Options button, select the GUID partition scheme and click on the OK button. Set the Format drop down menu to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the number of partitions from the Partition drop down menu to one (1). Click on the Partition button. Wait for the volume to mount on the Desktop.
Quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with the OS X installation. When you get to the part where you select a destination click on the icon for the external hard drive.

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.

Control xserve RAID from iPhone

Would it be possible to control the xserve RAIDs in our facility with our iPhones? I would love to be able to -at least- start or stop the machines, if necessary with command line tools from the iPhone. Or to get some basic health info. If anyone can help (or Apple staff, make my wish come true and make a special iPhone app for christmas?)
Thanks, Rob

I think you would install the tools on a machine somewhere, and then use an ssh client on the iphone to ssh to that server, and run the tools from there.
I think getting an Active Storage Labs XRaid and using their upcoming iPhone client would be snazzier

What security products are suggested for scrubbing rootkits from a Mac? There are good articles on similar repair for PCs and it makes me want to see if I can save this machine. It's in forensic recovery right now so I myself have not done anything yet.

What security products are suggested for scrubbing rootkits from a Mac? There are good articles on similar repairs for other makes online. I would like to investigate whether a machine can be truly scrubbed or if it's best to retire it. I haven't done anything yet as it is a candidate for more extensive forensic recovery.
Also, I am not sure if various malicious spoofing and cloaking tricks (making Wi-Fi appear off when it is on, hiding unauthorized sharing/remote access, falsifying System Preferences preference panes, etc.) are resolved by a thorough drive erase or are more similar to APTs?
Finally, is there any emerging information regarding APT hiding places other than the recovery partition? I have heard mention of the EFI, for example, but it seems unproven and unlikely. Some people have also mentioned the RAM.
This is an upsetting topic to some people, including me, so I appreciate circumspect, measured responses. Thanks! And don't try to answer all my questions if you really just want to comment or answer one. All thoughts are appreciated.

Hi, Lincoln,
A straightforward question. You are correct in recognizing the difference between tentative conclusion and certainty. Here are our main reasons:
1. Incoming items noted on the console (or console sub logs) and Activity Monitor after defenses are overcome, and which are brought in by an unwelcome remote user, often have a process name and the word "kit." (Bear with me.) We soon observe the process is under attack, from terminal evidence and soon, decreased or lost functionality of the process. The terminal generally reports alteration of specific kernel behaviors. A simple example (that may or may not be accompanied by kernel changes and may simply alter permissions) is modifying Disk Utility such that key uses are unavailable. You can see how an attacker might value disabling partition views, mounting and permission repair. In retrospect, DU might not be a root alteration. I was thinking that its relation to fsck flagged it as a possible ring 0 item. I may need to know core parameters of a good example to pick strong ones.
2. Incoming folders hidden for possible later use contained bundles of similar root kits, including some not applicable to Macs. From what I have read from reasonably credible sources, root kits are sold and traded both singly and in bundles.
3. Root kits are a logical next choice for our attackers, as various prior techniques hindered us but did not paralyze us.
4. One of the most authoritative articles I found was about PCs not Macs. I noted the assertion, undocumented, that an estimated one million computers are infected by root kit manipulations, and underscored that the kits can be used by people with low computer skills.
5. MacAfee lists root kits (by description, not name) as a top pop five threat prediction in the coming year, though again, the emphasis is on PCs.
Linc, I am trying to show a spectrum of observations and info that have shaped my thinking. To retrieve better captured evidence requires significant legwork at this time, but it is something I am willing to do if you can be patient. Understand this long attack has been like a natural disaster to us.
I have not linked a few articles of interest because I forget if that's allowed. If so, I'd be glad to.
After reviewing this partial answer, you may form another hypothesis. If so, please share it. I am comfortable with my position but not clinging to it.
Thanks for your interest. Looking forward to your thoughts.
Oh, yeah: some material is out for analysis, so we should have credible opinions pretty soon. Not positive exactly when.

Can I boot my Xserve G5 from an Xserve RAID?

As title says, can I boot my Xserve G5 from an Xserve RAID over Fibre?

Hi
No.
HTH?
Tony

Good article from Tom Yager on Xserve RAID drives

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