No more Xserve RAID

Apple is no longer selling the Xserve RAID.
They are supplying hard drives for existing devices as long as supplies last.
The new RAID by Promise is NOT compatible with XSAN 1 any version, nor is it compatible with FCP Studio 1
This is all per an Apple engineer about 20 minutes ago.

Not compatible means the Promise RAID ONLY runs with MDC's running XSAN 2 and Leopard OS.
XSAN 2 is backwards compatible with XSAN 1.4
So basically what you have to do it make sure your MDC's are at Leopard and XSAN 2 then put the Promise RAID in as a new volume instead of adding it to your existing volume. According to the two engineers I spoke with, you can technically add it to your current volume, pending all the versions are correct. I personally would never do that just because of the different LUN sizes between the two RAIDS.
Since XSAN 2 is supposed to be backwards compatible with XSAN 1.4 theoretically you could leave your clients at 1.4 but they wouldn't have access to the new volume since it requires XSAN 2.
Let the bugs begin.

Similar Messages

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'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

Xserve RAID lost RAID 5 array on right/bottom controller

I cleanly shut down an Xserve G5 with an Xserve RAID attached and then powered off the Xserve RAID this morning. I replaced a failing memory module in the Xserve and moved the rack 6". I then powered on the Xserve RAID, waited for a couple minutes until it was fully booted, and then booted the Xserve. When it came up, my RAID 50 volume failed to mount. Upon further investigation, it appears that the RAID 5 array on the right hand disks is "gone". In RAID Admin (Disks and Drives tab), the left side array is visible, but all disks on the right side list status as "OK" and Type: as "Spare".
Configuration: Xserve RAID with 14 250 GB disks. Each side was configured with 6 disks in a RAID 5 array and one spare. These were striped using Software RAID on the Xserve into RAID 50 and mounted as a single volume. The RAID firmware is currently 1.5 and the Xserve is running OS X Server 10.4.3.
To summarize today's activities: under Apple's guidance (as this entire system is covered under a Premium Support contract), I swapped the (bottom) controller for the right side, updated firmware (from v1.3/1.20a to 1.5/1.50), multiple resets of both controllers, repeated forced firmware updates, etc.
Also, I swapped the left set of disks for the right set, and the array from the left set now shows up on the right side, and the missing array from the right is still missing with the disks on the left side. I replaced the disks to their original positions with the same results.
RAID Admin's Utility "Recognize Array" will not perform any operations on the rigth side disks and Apple tells me that there's nothing further that I can do with it.
None of this has solved the problem or substantially changed the issue, and the disks on the right side are still missing their associated array. Apple is unable/unwilling to offer any further help except to refer me to 3rd party data recovery services.
Does anyone have any suggestion at all that might possibly recover the missing array? Is anyone aware of any tools that I might use to recreate the RAID 5 array on the right controller? I was hoping that there might exist some low-level tools with which the disks could be recreated into an array by hand? Are there any commercial products that would work on this? Any other ideas?
Many thanks for any suggestions.
- Martin
Xserve RAID (14 250GB disks) on Xserve G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Not sure why you swapped the controllers back and forth
William, I don't think I was clear on this. I swapped the controller with a new controller that I had in a spare parts kit. This was at Apple's request.
really, RAID is not a backup...
I'm well aware, but despite my incessant warnings, users will become lulled in to a false sense of security when something "just works" for a very long time. This array wasn't intended to store valuable data that couldn't be lost, but...
It may be possible for Apple to re-create the RAID set, did you ask AppleCare about the possibility?
Apple has told me more than once that there's nothing else that they can do for me...and yet I keep calling back.
I was surprised that this array was lost when there were absolutely no prior signs of a problem and the system was merely shutdown and restarted cleanly. I'm more surprised and quite disappointed to learn that Apple will do nothing else for me (under a Premium Support contract) to attempt to repair a damaged array. When I asked questions about where the RAID information is stored, I received the answers: "I can't tell you that" and "Apple doesn't release that information". I did not get the feeling that they were working with me, but rather holding my hand while they walked me through published documentation.
I expected that there would be utilities (analagous to filesystem repair utilities) such as RAID Admin's "Recognize Array" that could help repair and recover damaged array data. I think that the lesson that I've leanred today is that I was naive to have expected such a thing without actually having investigated it ahead of time.
Anyway, thanks for your input, William.

AFP and Xserve RAID very SLOOOOW

Recently we have been having problems with AFP pegging the Xserve RAID activity lights. Xserve RAID Disk access is very slow.
Machine Specs:
Dual 2.3 GHZ G5 Xserve
1GB RAM (recently downgraded because of memory problems after a power outage)
1x80GB Xserve drive module
3TB Xserve RAID 5
Xserve RAID has been upgraded to 1.5 FW and has both ethernet connections connected.
The whole story is we had a power outage last week. The servers all came back up fine. Throughout the day we noticed that the file server was acting strange. We checked server monitor and it said that RAM slot 3&4 had problems. We opened up System Profiler and it reported that modules 2&3 were only 256MB! (These are 512MB modules). We brought the machine down and pulled the modules. The machine is now at 1GB of memory with more coming. The next day the machine was incredibly slow and the RAIDs access lights were pegged. Also something was pulling all free memory into inactive memory. After trial and error I've found that if I turn off AFP the RAID is no longer pegged and the memory goes back to normal. I thought AFP was the problem and did a complete rebuild of the server last night. This morning the same thing is happening. Also the logs show nothing is wrong.
All of our Macintosh users are Mobile accounts over AFP. We have around 60 Macintosh users. All of our PC users connect using SMB. We have around 20 PC users. All of our network users work off of the file shares.
Thanks for any and all help,
-dustin

Check so that the Xserve RAID diskcache settings are not reset/off.
I have had to take apart the RAID controllers and putting them back togheter again to alleviate slowness/"malfunction" making a couple of RAIDs operating like normal again.
I use Helios Lantest http://www.helios.de/ and XRG to measure/stress disks locally and over the network to see if they are working correctly.

Maximum size for Xserve RAID modules

What is the maximum storage size for an Xserve RAID module?
Years ago, an Xserve RAID was out of my price range. Now, I'm looking into getting one on eBay and playing around with it.
I have been making Mirrored RAIDS with Western Digital 3 TB My Books.
Can I put 3 TB drives in an Xserve RAID? It probably depends on the controller firmware or something.
Thanks for thinking about this.
Doc

Short answer is no, you can't.
The XServe RAID has IDE drives mounted in a carrier. The maximum size drive shipped by Apple, supported under 1.5.1 firmware on the controllers is 750GB, though finding these on the used market is farily difficult. Aside from that, any IDE drive can be put in the carriers. If your unit has 'blank' slots, these are indeed just blank slots - you will need to get carriers / drive modules if you want disks in the slot if that makes sense.
People on the Internet, myself included, have experimented down the route of using IDE to SATA bridges in the carriers with 2.5" SATA drives which are more freely available. This way you can utilise cheap drives in your drive modules, or even SSDs (which offer little benefit I have found). Some users have had success with 1TB 2.5" SATA drives in this method, but not with anything bigger it seems. Myself, I've had suceess with 500GB SATA and 256GB SSD with this hacky method.
Hope that helps.

How can I fix slow AFP writes to our Xserve RAID?

Hi,
This problem has been posted before but I couldn't find a solution. We have a Intel Xserve connected via fibre channel to a 14 disk 10.5 TB Xserve RAID. It's setup as two RAID5 volumes soft raided into one volumes (RAID 50).
There are multiple AFP shares on the RAID being served by the Xserve. The problem is that writes over AFP randomly go really slowly. Sampling using fs_usage shows a load of RdMeta operations from the AppleFilerServer process. I think it's the same issue that was posted here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8153758#8153758
We've tried everything mentioned in that post - with no success. Has anyone managed to solve this problem? Many thanks,
Jamie

It might be an HFS+ filesystem but because I'm seeing this on a simple striped RAID in a PowerMac. I was writing a script to look for system files starting with 32 zero bytes:
find /System/Library/ -type f -exec echo -n "{}:" \; -exec xxd -l 32 -c 64 -p {} \; | grep ':0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000' | cut -f 1 -d':'
Sometimes it appeared to halt for a long time and fs_usage showed RdMeta or WrMeta blasting along at ~100MB/s. After a few more runs it no longer has this problem. I wonder if there's a tuning bug in HFS hot file management or defragmentation.

XSERV RAID FIBER CHANNEl

We have XSERV RAID MODEL A1009 with 4 Hard disk RAID 5.
Now I have installed CISCO 1000Base SX Module in 3 COM Switch & other same Module in XSERVER RAID. Now XSERVE RAID & switcted with Transeiver cable. Now I check RAID ADMIN TOOL FIber Channel Option the links shows down.
Let me know what is solution. Please also let me know how can I know that fiber link is up if any way.

Finisar makes a nice SFP to LC transceiver (available on the Apple Store for $99.95 for 2 Gbit and $119.95 for 4 Gbit) that you can use in the Xserve to allow it to accept LC optical cables. You'll need 2 of these, and then you can hook up LC optical cables.
I'll echo the other post -- be aware those ports are for fibre channel communication ONLY. You must hook it to a fibre channel card (HBA) in a host, or to a fibre switch (i.e. Cisco MDX 9000 series). You cannot hook up a network connection to those ports -- Xserve RAID provides data ONLY over fibre channel, it is not a NAS device. You must connect it to a host which can re-share the data over Ethernet, for example Xserve RAID with OS X Server which can reshare using AFP, SMB/CIFS, NFS, FTP, DAV, and more.

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 - Connecting 2 hosts

I've been asked to connect an additional computer to an Xserve RAID here at work so that both machines can access and share data from the RAID. I know little about networking RAIDs and was hoping someone could shed some light on a few questions:
1. Am I correct in assuming that if I put a fibre channel card in the new machine and connect it to 1 of the RAID controllers, and have the original machine connected to the other RAID controller, that both machines will only see 1 array each and won't be able to share data?
2. Do I need a fibre channel switch or hub to do what I'd like to do? If so, does anyone have any suggestions for a model that is compatible with the Xserve RAID?
Thanks so much for any help anyone can offer.

+1. Am I correct in assuming that if I put a fibre channel card in the new machine and connect it to 1 of the RAID controllers, and have the original machine connected to the other RAID controller, that both machines will only see 1 array each and won't be able to share data?+
This is correct - the sides of the Xserve RAID are logically separate and each port allows access to only one half of the RAID.
+2. Do I need a fibre channel switch or hub to do what I'd like to do? If so, does anyone have any suggestions for a model that is compatible with the Xserve RAID?+
There are many and Apple sells several on their site. But -
+*DO NOT DO WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING TO DO*+
Fibre channel access to a volume assumes complete control of the volume. If you attach more than one fibre channel host to a volume they will both act without any data arbitration and *data loss and corruption will occur*. Not may occur but will occur and much crying will ensue.
To correctly attach more than one machine to data over fibre channel requires an over-arching system to do data arbitration. The usual case in this situation is Apple's XSAN but diving into XSAN is an involved and (usually) expensive project and should not be undertaken lightly.
I suggest you find out what the ultimate goal is look for a different solution.
Hope my warning is clear enough,
=Tod

Xserve-RAID set up

I am a photographer and I am setting up an Xserve RAID system that I have had for a little while to store my photographs. Can anybody help suggest the best RAID level. My sense is telling me that for photographs I need to Mirror so Level 1. I have 7 drives so can I mirror a set of three drives which takes up 6 drives and have one drive left as a "hot Spare"?
Thank you for your time....

Why do you want to mirror your storage?
Without more information I would suggest RAID 5 by reflex. It will give you the most storage - a 6 disk RAID 5 will give you disksize* 5 storage and it will protect your data if a drive fails. And if a drive fails the 7th disk hot-spare will be automatically be used to rebuild the RAID data.
You will not be protected if more than one drive fails simultaneously - that's what back-up is for. Mirrored RAID is NOT a back-up plan. It will not protect you against disk corruption or accidental deletion (that will be mirrored immediately) nor does it protect you against water being poured on the RAID box or someone stealing it or fire or whatever... Only back-up protects you against these things.
There are legitimate reasons to run mirrored RAID but back-up is not one of them. If your reasons are sound (and you are doing back-up in addition to mirroring) then your plan is certainly doable but make sure your reasons are the right ones.
HTH,
=Tod

Xserve raid parts

Yesterday I took delivery of an Xserve RAID A1009. It was sold for parts but appears to be functionine perfectly so I am pretty happy. However, even though it was packed pretty well with foam all around, UPS must have handled it pretty rough and it was damaged. Worst damage was to the locking tabs at the back, specifically for the 2 cooling modules which had all 4 locking tabs broken off. Being either white metal or aluminum, I can see that potentially they may have been fragile and prone to breaking in normal use.
So, my question is, does anyone know of a replacement source for these tabs. Hopefully I may never need to pull the cooling modules but on the other hand I expect that they should need cleaning and vacuuming from time to time and appear to be pretty tough to remove without the initial help afforded by these tabs.
Thanks.

The only sorce any more is ebay. If you look it has a good selection of parts. You should not need to take them out very much if the enviorment is clean. They do get a small dust coating sometimes but if you can get them out with out the tabs I would not worry to much.
I have had some bad experinces with UPS too.
Nice find by the way, its nice to buy somthing for parts only to find that it is functioning perfectly.

Xserve raid or other raid

Hello everyone. I'm looking to buy some type of raid system but I dot know if it shoul be an Xserve raid or another one from a place like other world computing. I need my raid to be able to do heavy video editing with video quality at blueray, and it has to act as a scratch disk. The thing I like about the Xserve raid is that it is expandable and runs through fiber. I need to be able totransfer large files fast. If I were to invest in a different raid I might be stuck with FireWire 800, or esata but I don't know if esata works on my Xserve. I know the xraid is discontinued and uses para drives, but is it still worth it.

I found one off the website gainsaver.com for about 400. Thats not including the drives. At first i wont need much space. I would start slow maybe with 2 500gb or 2 250gb something like that. Slowly ill grow, so i dont have to worry about spending a bunch on the top drives. I will be using it for time machine backup of my server, and as a scratch disk for my editing. When i do edit, i need to be able to at least transfer 50mb a second to it because i edit in blue ray quality video. I also have a fibre channel card in my xserve already so i would only have to buy the two wires. One of the things that also pushed me to consider it is that in my school, we have a video editing suite. In that suite there are a bunch of xserves and 2 xraids. They are used as scratch disks for 25 computers that all edit video at the same time. In the school we work with SD so its easier on the transfer but its still intense. Thats why i was pushed to consider the xraid, and especially coming from apple, who makes products that last years more than they should. It doesnt seem like a bad idea. What do you think

Xserve RAID expansion

Hello all, I just need to clarify something here. My Xserve RAID is hooked up to my Xserve G5 and is used to store users home directories.
I have recently added two more drives to the RAID to knock it from 700Gb to 1.4TB. I used to RAID Admin tool to expand the RAID which completed ok. It recognises the increased capacity, but of course OSX Server 10.4.11 does not, so I have to format it.
If I copy the entire contents of the RAID to another area, take the area off sharing for home directories, format the RAID with Diskutil, then copy everything back, then put it back on sharing, will it all just work again as it did before (as in no problems accessing home directories accross network).
I have to do this next week, and any help is much appreciated. Thanks

It should see the extra space. I have increased size even on Panther and it saw the additional space.

Xserve raid midplane(?) troubleshooting help

Hi,
I just inherited an XServe RAID with 12 180GB drives. My question is thus:
If I put the single RAID controller in the top slot, It recognizes all drives on the left side of the RAID, which is expected
If I put the single RAID controller in the bottom slot, it does not recognize any drives in any slots even if I swap those drives from the left side to the right (to rule out 5 bad drives.
I have two empty sleds that are on the right side of the RAID as well.
I am guessing, having never owned one before, that this is likely a problem with the midplane. Is there a way to troubleshoot the midplane? I very quick inspection, didn't reveal anything that was obvious. I plan on doing a more thorough inspection over the weekend.
I am also making the assumption that I do not have to have a controller in the top slot for the bottom controller to work since the top controller works without having a controller in the bottom slot.
Any help/insight would be appreciated

LIttle Update in case it would help someone with more knowledge of this than I:
When the Controller is in the lower position:
or
which I find interesting since I don't have an upper controller installed and the cooling modules both show as missing even though they exist (though 1 is failed).
If I look at the other tabs:
Info: Shows only Name: XServe RAID and Power State: On
Arrays & Drives: Shows Not Installed for all drives on that side of the XServe RAID
Fibre Channel is blank as I don't currently have it connected to my XServe
Events shows nothing of significance to me other than all disks online
When the controller is in the upper position however:
I am curious as to why the RAID controller shows as present in both slots when it clearly is not however.
Hoping it was just a cable from the midplane to the unit, I swapped cables this morning hoping for a failure, but did not get such failure, so I have ruled out the cable. The Controller seems to work when it is in the top slot, so I think that the controller is likely good as well. So I guess I can sum it up as:
Power supplies: Good x2, shows a green light in either slot, swapped in testing
Batteries: Good x2; Swapped in testing, Swapped in testing, works in upper slot, does not in lower slot
Cooling Unit: Good x2; Swapped in testing, works in upper slot, does not in lower slot
Controller: Good x1; works in upper slot, does not work in lower slot
Which leads me back to the midplane as there isn't much else inside this unit that I can see that could go wrong. Does this sound like an accurate assessment? I ask because I want to be confident I have found the issue prior to ordering a new backplane.
Once again, thanks in advance for any information.

No more Xserve RAID

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