LSI cards with Xserve raid

I just got a xserve raid for my photography archive, and it included a LSI raid card, which the previous owner said might be faster than apple's card. Does anyone have any experience with LSI fiberchannel cards? Somewhere I heard that LSI was the OEM for Apple's card. Thanks!
Richard Blair

I'll answer my own question. The LSI card works fine.

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Problems with Xserve RAID

I have been having problems with Xserve RAID, which happened in a close time span, but may not be related. The Xserve RAID is set up with 7 disks with RAID 5, totaling to 1.3TB in storage capacity.
First, the first disk failed and the RAID system was degraded. Since I got a very similar 250GB harddisk (but without "Apple Firmware") I tried putting it as a replacement. It was recognized but it became a hot spare disk, even though I did not set the system to use hot spare.
Later Mac OS X reported that the Xserve RAID's 1.3TB volume was unmounted. I check with Disk Utility, and it reported a lot of errors. I ended up with about 70GB of files in lost+found, and I confirmed that many files were missing. Disk Utility could not really fixed it.
I put back the failed disk, and Xserve RAID successfully rebuilt the array. I did "Background Array Conditioning" to perform surface scan and mapping of bad blocks. It completed without error. I then did "Verify Parity Data", and it completed but with error, as follows:
Event:
Disk 5 Reported An Error. COMMAND:0x37 ERROR:0x64 STATUS:0x81 LBA:0x119E6880
Description:
The drive reported ATA error. This is a failure in the communication from the RAID Controller to the drive.
Any idea what is happening with this Xserve RAID? Bad disk? Bad controller? Or what? Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Xserve RAID Dual G5 2.0GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)

After reading here and there on the net (including this forum), yes I realized that the "Apple Firmware" thing may be significant after all. But since I set the Xserve RAID to use RAID 5, a failure of one disk should not affect data integrity. And surface scan was successful, implyingthat all disks are now free from defects. So why did it lost 70GB worth of data? I experienced disk hardware failure often with Windows system but never experienced losing data while the hardware seems to be fine. Without knowing why this happened, I feel scared to put data on Xserve RAID, and this is ironic since this 1.7TB Xserve RAID is meant for storing data safely...

HUGE Troubles with xServe RAID formatted 10.4 and using it with SLS 10.6

Hi All,
We met today a huge trouble using an Apple xServe RAID (formatted HFS+ with a Mac OS 10.4 Server PowerPC G5).
This RAID has been plugged with a new xServe Intel Xeon (Model xServe 3.1), MacOS X 10.6.2, Apple FiberChannel card 4 GB, the link is at 2 GB.
There is also an Infortrend RAID FiberChannel 4 GB Fiber to SATA RAID attached to this new Intel Xeon server : this RAID drive mounts correctly, no troubles.
BUT the "old" xServe RAID is not able to mount at all while plugged with this new Intel Xeon, DiskUtility claims the volume needs repair !!! We try a repair = failed !!!
The xServe RAID has been formated under 10.4.6, HFS+ Journaled.
The Infortrend has been formated under 10.6.2, HFS+
Does anyone met a such case ??? We tried using SFP to SFP Copper cable or Optical Fiber + SFP/LC Transceiver = same results
Many thanks a lot for your opinion !!!
Regards.

What if you connect your "old" xServe RAID to a non SLS server if you have one available? Preferably one running 10.4.x server to match your HFS format. If the data on the old RAID is so critical that you can't afford to lose it, you could always pickup a used PPC w/ a fibre channel card and install 10.4 server on it just so you can transfer the data. Curious to see what you end up doing.

Mac Pro compatibility with Xserve Raid

Are the two compatible? In other words, can I connect an Xserve Raid to my Mac Pro (asuming that I have a Fiber Chanel card)?
If above answer is yes, asume that the Mac Pro is connected to a WLAN at home via Ethernet or airport. This WLAN also hosts one more computer (PC). Will this PC have access to the Xserve raid data?
Finally (and asuming that cost is not a big issue-I know how much the Raid solution costs, even at minimum config), Do you think that the Xserve Raid solution (with the minimum configuration) is better/more reliable/faster/ than the Mac Pro internal solution? Take into consideration that I am a photographer (shooting digital and raw format ONLY) and I consume about 50-60Gb of disk space per month
Mac Pro 2.66 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

You might want to look at what some other photographers use, Port Multiplier controller and drive enclosures. Up to 5 drives per channel for a total of 20 drives.
XRAID would offer FC and more levels of RAID support, and concurrent access, especially with Xsan.
Take a look at the AMUG reviews:
Mac Pro 2GHz 2GB WD Raptor/ RE 320/160 Mac OS X (10.4.8) APC RS1500

Super Slow Performance with Xserve RAID / Promise Fibre

Hey guys,
I am experiencing a strange thing on both 10.5.8 and 10.7.5 servers (yes these are in the process of being retired). They are sharing out either an Xserve RAID or Promise Vtrak with OS X Server.
We have the fibre channel card and the storage attaches to there and they appear mounted on the desktop.
The problem we are having is that whenever OS X's file sharing is enabled these volumes run incredibly slow! I did a clean install of OS X 10.7.5 on an entirely different machine and it was still bad. All of my tests show that when you turn off file sharing, both AFP and SMB, the performance goes back to normal -- so what can we do here??? These are file servers, so that's pretty much the only thing that needs to work.
Thanks,
Andrew

Slow/poor RAID performance can be down to a number of things. Some of which are easier to check than others.
Some easy things to check are:
How much data is stored on the RAIDs?
Performance really drops off alarmingly once the RAID gets to 85% full. For a 1TB RAID this means you need to keep at least 250GB of free disk space at all times otherwise you will get the poor performance you're seeing. Once it gets to 86/87/88% full performance can drop alarmingly. Yes those few percent points can make a big difference.
How is the data stored on the RAIDs?
Having thousands and thousands of single files stored loosely on the RAID or within one single folder is not a good idea. The Finder can be and is fairly inefficient at drawing the icons for those files that are presented to network users accessing the share point(s). This can/and is perceived as very slow performance as you're viewing the files over a network connection. One way to overcome this 'feature' is to organise the data into logical folders/sub-folders and/or shares.
Are there problems with the file/directory structure of the RAIDs themselves?
Use DiskUtility (or better still DiskWarrior) to repair any issues (generally built up over a period of time) with the storage disks you have. You can't repair permissions using DiskUtility or anything else on a non-OS bearing drive. Don't forget to do this also for your System Drive (which can have its permissions repaired) as well. This will mean the server being off-line for a time whilst the system (OS) drive is being repaired. Before doing this step I would make sure you have a current and effective backup of your System/Server OS as well as all data stored on the RAIDs themselves. Hopefully you should be doing this for your data already?
To understand Disk Utility's repair permissions feature please read Apple's support document here:
About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature - Apple Support

Xserve with Xserve raid...

I have a Xserve G4 connected to a Xserve Raid. Up to 2 weeks ago, everything was running fine. On my 2.2 TB Xserve Raid I have 2 partitions. Both partitions have afp file sharing on them. For some reasons, partition 1 is running really slow. Users that are working off that partition are experiencing lots of lag. The 2nd partition seems fine. Locally on that machine, I copy files back and forth, and that seems fine aswell. Something on the networking side is bottle necking partition 1. Has anyone had a similar problem, or might see something that I am overseeing? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Kawal

How full is the partition?
My guess it it's full - more than 90%, at least.
All drives will slow as they fill up because the controller has to do a lot more work to find available space for new data. It's worse in a RAID setup since the available space is spread out across multiple drives.

10.4 X with Xserve Raid - Have Reboot Daily

We have a Mac server 10.4 with Raid. Every day it seems that we have to reboot it. The reason for the reboot is because the server develops very slow response times to attached users. There has to be a setting some where that will help us. Any one have any ideas? Thanks a ton in advance.

OK, let's go with this. Several others are reporting the same problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=428639&tstart=0
and
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=409444&tstart=0
And I've seen it, too. I originally reported this bug to Apple several months ago when 10.4.2 was released and here's my original posting: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=647624
So far, all I can say is the following:
1. The error message is not related to permissions being set incorrectly. As you've found out (or seen in the previous postings), you can use POSIX permissions or Tiger's Effective Permissions model, which incorporates ACLs.
2. The problem is specific to the Mac OS X 10.4.x Finder. Earlier Finders do not exhibit this problem. Attempting a copy (move or rename) via Terminal with cp, ditto, or mv is always successful.
3. I believe that the problem is related to the client's checking of permissions against stored directory information (checking for masked AFP permissions). You're more likely to get this error with a client that's bound to the server's Open Directory domain than one that's not.
4. I'm quite surprised that it's taken almost a year for this bug to really become discovered. I've noticed it right away and I think Apple has known about it for some time. I do think that the problem has gotten a little bit better with Mac OS X 10.4.4 and 10.4.5, but your mileage may vary.
I encourage you to keep posting details and filing Mac OS X Feedback reports (http://www.apple.com/feedback/server.html). Maybe we can find a solution or Apple will take notice.
--Gerrit

Xserve Raid and Windows Machines

Hi All,
I need some help, first and foremost I am not familiar with Xserve Raid units. We have one in a remote office that is connected to all our macs via Fiber. I need to connect a windows box with a fiber card to this SAN also to backup the SAN. How do I go about mounting the volume within windows and what software do I need to connect?
Thanks,
Greg

Are the computers using the RAID as directly attached storage or are they using XSAN (or another product) to access the storage as a SAN?
If they are using XSAN then I'm afraid you're out of luck as we there is no Windows client for XSAN. If they are using a different SAN product then perhaps you'll have more luck with finding a windows client.
HTH,
=Tod

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

Looking for some ideas for setting up and xServe RAID

Everyone,
Here is what I would to do. I have a new xServe and 7TB RAID. I would like to set all of my end users up with Portable Home Directories. They all have laptops and I would like to use their PHD as my backup source. I would set them to sync in the background a couple of times per day and then write to tape at night.I have about 60 end users. I would also like to use the same xServe and RAID as my Kerio mail server and mail store. What I am looking for is some ideas of how to go about setting up the RAID. I was orginially thinking of setting up as one big RAID 5 using all 14 drives. What I would like to know is what is the number of drives that would need to fail that would render the RAID unrebuildable? I am now thinking about splitting the RAID into two 7 drives in RAID set up as RAID 1+0.
I am not sure if I phrased a lot of this currently, but here is quick recap of what I would like to know. What would be the best way to set up a 7TB RAID to store PHD and my Kerio mail store that provides me the most redudant and fastest acccess.
Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Daniel Krajc

Daniel,
I'd suggest a 6 disk RAID 5 plus a hot spare for each side. It will give you about 2.4 TB capacity per side (4.8 total), and it can tolerate 2 drive failures per side without losing data, provided there is sufficient time between failures for the RAID set to automatically rebuild on the hot spare. This window is 8-12 hours.
Note with Xserve RAID the two sides are totally independent in the data path -- it will look like 2 separate LUNs. If you want to combine these at the host level, as RAID 0 or RAID 1 to look like a single volume, you can. But the Xserve RAID will not combine them itself... the RAID controllers are independent... it might as well be two separate RAID volumes in the same chassis.
I assume you'll plug this into an Xserve that is serving as an Open Directory server and a file server?

HD for Xserve Raid

what harddrive is compatible with xserve raid other than Hitachi HDS 722525 VLAT 80?

Hi there, will Western Digital WD1600AAJB 160gb ATA-100 and Western Digital WD320AAJB 320gb ATA-100 work as a replacement for HITACHI HDS722525 VLAT80?
Found a review for both HD's.
http://reviews.cnet.com/internal-hard-drives/ hitachi-deskstar-7k250-hds722525vlat80/4507-9998_7-30548324.html?tag=mncol;subn av
http://reviews.cnet.com/internal-hard-drives/wd-caviar-blue-wd1600aajb/4507-9998 _7-32493985.html?tag=mncol;subnav
Tnx,
neliemae

Using Xserve RAID as NAS

We have a serious need for a NAS system in our studio. And coincidentally, we have a 3 yr old XSERVE 5.6 TB RAID - just sitting around, unused.
The Xserve has the standard Fibre Channel ports for mounting it onto a your computer (as well as the Ethernet ports for admin).
My question is, has anyone used their XSERVE as NAS? I know I could hook-up a CPU to my xserve and make it work that way, but I don't have an extra G5 laying around.
Thanks,
Tom

Use some caution on the terminology here, as there are Xserve and Xserve RAID widgets, and these are quite different.
There needs to be a computer or controller here to act as a router between clients expecting to have Network Attached Storage (NAS) and a Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (FC SAN) widget such as the Xserve RAID.
There are controllers which allow SAN storage to be served via network, but these typically operate by providing a complete separate path (NAS) into the storage. Via iSCSI or AFP or SMB into the controller, for instance. (And I'd expect there isn't much in this product space for an Xserve RAID array; I am aware of a few vendors that do offer storage arrays that can be acquired with one or both of iSCSI and SAN bus interfaces, but Apple doesn't AFAIK offer this with Xserve RAID.)
I'd probably look to sell the Xserve RAID and (if you have it) the FC SAN Host Bus Adapter (HBA) you were using, and use any profits to offset the cost of acquiring a replacement NAS storage array widget, or to acquire a Direct Attached Storage (DAS) storage array that can be served off one of your existing host(s). A SCSI or SAS shelf hanging off FireWire 800 or a SAS controller can do quite well in this regard.
I'd tend to guess you'll spend more - if you don't already have a Mac Pro or Xserve and FC SAN giblets you can connect to the Xserve RAID - than wholesale replacement with a DAS or NAS widget. 5.6 TB is approximately three current-generation disks, or four of the previous 1.6 GB generation disks. A four- or eight-bay Drobo is in this range, as are many other solutions. Or "just a SCSI or SAS storage shelf" configured as DAS can work fine, too. (And disk storage shelves are available from various vendors.)

Trouble NetBooting Xserve G5 with PCI RAID Card

Has anyone else had problems NetBooting Xserve G5 with the PCI RAID card installed?
I've got a Dual 2.0 GHz and Dual 2.3 GHz Xserve G5 that both can't seem to NetBoot consistently. On the very odd occasion they do netboot but not very oftern. When you set the NetBoot volume from the Startup Disk system preference and reboot, they just fail to boot and eventually their fans go crazy.
I have other Xserve G5s that NetBoot just fine. I've tried different network cables and swapping switch ports with Xserves that work, but it hasn't helped.
Could it be something on the NetBoot server?
Looking at the system log on the NetBoot server you can see the "bootpd" request from the booting server. I don't have a graphics card install in the Xserves being NetBooted so don't know what's being displayed on the server's console.
The NetBoot server is an Intel-based Xserve (Late 2006) running 10.4.11.

that seems to be the next step here: find or purchase a new card to test the existing drives.
i had wondered if these cards aren't compatible with the 750 gb drives. does anyone know?
also, would a bad battery cause such craziness? does the battery keep read/write cache data on the 64mb on-card memory for just this purpose? i haven't found much documentation on the apple branded cards.
thanks for your help.

XServe with hardware RAID card and headless install

Today, while trying to remotely install Mac OS X Server 10.4 ("Tiger") on an Apple XServe G5 with hardware RAID card, I discovered that it did not report the IP address of the server (booted from CD) with the sa_srchr command as it did with Mac OS X Server 10.3. With Mac OS X Server 10.3, I could boot the server from the CD, use the sa_srchr command from a remote machine to find the IP address, ssh into the server and user megaraid to create or recreate the RAID volumes using the internal drives in the server.
When I boot the XServe from the Mac OS Server 10.4 CD and run the sa_srchr command from a remote computer, I get "No Longer Used" in the place where the IP address should be (as it was in 10.3 Server and as it is described in the current, 10.4 Server, "Command Line Administration" manual).
Example: localhost#2xCPUFormat#No Longer Used #xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx#Mac OS X Server 10.4#RDY4PkgInstall#3.0#512
Just as an experiment, I threw the Mac OS X Server 10.4 DVD into an iMac G5 and booted it. Using the sa_srchr command, I get the same "No Longer Used" where the IP address should be.
Does anyone know:
Is this a problem with the original "Mac OS X Server 10.4.0" installation CDs? Do I need 10.4.1, 10.4.2 or 10.4.3 CD/DVD media?
Has this functionality been removed from Tiger install discs? Is there another way to create the RAID volumes?
I know that I can use the Mac OS X 10.3 Server disks to work around this, but it doesn't seem like I should have to...
Justin Sako
Leander ISD

Are you sure you have the 10.4 Admin Tools installed on the 'client' machine? I've seen this happen when trying to set up a 10.4 server from a machine with 10.3 Admin Tools installed. Try deleting the Admin Tools from your client machine, and re-install from a 10.4 DVD.
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

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

LSI cards with Xserve raid

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