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.

Similar Messages

Xserve RAID Fibre Channel Lights pegged until disk activity

We are having some issues with an Xserve RAID connected to a G5 Xserve running 10.4.8 Server. The Fibre Channel lights on the front are constantly maxed out, but whenever the disk are active the lights die down only to peg again when activity stops. Needless to say, we are having SEVERE access speed issues. Any ideas?

This can happen in a protected RAID set (i.e. RAID 5) if a single raid member drive pops offline and back on again, since the RAID set has to re-build itself from the parity data in that case.
It also happens after creating a RAID 5 volume, as the creation usually takes a few days (assuming you used the 'RAID Now' option), and so you'll see the blue lights.
It also makes sense that the blue light 'spiking' would drop when you do a read/write, as the initialization process has to pause to handle the disk activity.
Are either of these the case?
We are having some issues with an Xserve RAID
connected to a G5 Xserve running 10.4.8 Server. The
Fibre Channel lights on the front are constantly
maxed out, but whenever the disk are active the
lights die down only to peg again when activity
stops. Needless to say, we are having SEVERE access
speed issues. Any ideas?
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Xserve RAID discontinued

I'm trying to bay a new Xserve RAID, but I can't find it on apple online store!!!!
I found Promise RAID instead of Xserve RAID, is Xserve discontinued or replaced with Promise RAID??
Please can anyone explain.
Thanks

1-Manage it from Windows server 2003 (or any Windows based platform), to give securities and policies to AD users (also my whole network is Windows based so I want to manage it from Windows).
Why not attach it directly to your Windows server and have Windows manage it just like any other array.
There's no point in attaching it to a Mac, just to have a Windows Server manage the access.
2-Is it has SCSI port? Because I want to attach it to Tab Library (HP Storage works MSL 4048 tap library) for backup purposes.
It does not have a SCSI port (neither does the XServe RAID). To backup to a SCSI device you'd need to put a SCSI card in the host server and backup that way (e.g. RAID -> Fiber Channel -> Host -> SCSI -> Tape).

XServe RAID Sharing

Well, after many hours of heartache I skipped the pre-config options and am doing it the old fashioned way -- much easier.
Question: how come my clients can't see volumes mounted to the server? I have an xServe RAID fibre-channel attached to my xServe, but none of the client can reach the volume. Oddly, they can ping its IP though.
Any thoughts much appreciated

Unless I have missed something - leaving room for a mistake here - I would recommend people NOT upgrade from 10.3.9 server to Tiger server based on our ACL permission problems. If I had read this somewhere, I would have not upgraded. I was also told this "bug" we so enjoy would not be fixed until Leopard is released - circa Oct 2007.
I spent the night Thursday redoing the Tiger server install - from the ground up. Hand coded all users and only used the builtin staff group.
Using all the available tips I proceeded to:
1) turn on ACL for volumes.
2) reboot
3) set POSIX owner to "diradmin" (open directory owner) for all points that will be shared read write
4) set POSIX group ownership to "staff" read write
5) set POSIX everyone to read write
6) dragged staff group into ACL and set to full control
7) propagated each point
8) rebooted
9) enabled sharepoints
10) rebooted
a few hours later I am receiving calls from staff members that are creating documents that can't make changes to their new documents. Of course I am at home asleep because I was up for 24 hours before I went home. Had I been awake, I would be assured I was living a nightmare which really began a few weeks ago, the day we decided to finally use our Tiger server installer.
The most valuable tip I ran across is very poorly highlighted, the fact that you CANNOT propagate root owned files and folders. We all know that root/system owned files and folders are the ideal server side rights. What in the freaking world would posess anyone to change that??????? and not provide adaquate warning. So I will reiterate here because many people are missing this crucial point.
YOU CANNOT PROPAGATE ROOT/SYSTEM OWNED FILES AND FOLDERS PERMISSIONS
Even if you could, you are not guarenteed that ACLs will work. They simply don't work at all here - bug!
No, I'm not erasing 11 terabytes of storage to see if that helps. It didn't work on the internal 200 gb drives.
sincerely, Bugie
XServe G4

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.

External Fiber Channel Raid options for New Xserve besides Promise V-Trak

I was wondering if anyone out there knows if there is an alternate option for a External Raid that can be hooked up via 4gb Fiber Channel to my new Xserve. I am really looking for a more cost efficient one than the 12K Promise set up from Apple. My Technology vendor was telling me that you have to use the Promise Raid as it is the only one that a Xserve will control due to Apple's licensing of its drivers etc. for its Fiber channel. Something tells me that this is not true.
Anyone have any recomendations for a Fiber channel Raid solution in the 6K dollar range?
thanks,
Dan

Find another vendor. Anyone that tells you the Promise is the only RAID that will work clearly doesn't understand the market.
As for recommendations, you need to include some idea of capacity, either usable or raw. I can find you a lot of options for $6K if you want a 100GB of data. Not so many if you want 100TB.

4Gb Xserve Raid Card to 2Gb Xraid Fiber Channel

Greetings All,
Does anyone know if a 2x4Gb Fiber channel card will auto-negotiate down to the 2Gb level of my Xraid?
Thanks,
-dave

Yes it does. I've done it and the newest Xserve is plug and play with the old Xserve RAID.
=Tod

Xserve, G5, Xserve RAID and fibre channel question

hi guys,
I have a Xserve conneted to Xserve RAID right now. Is it possible connect G5 to Xserve RAID thru fibre channel ? thanks

>is it possible to do ?
Not in the way you describe, no.
The XServe RAID's 14 drives are connected to two separate controllers. Drives 1-7 are connected to the upper controller. Drives 8-14 are connected to the lower one.
If your XServe is currently connected to the upper controller it's talking to drives 1-7.
If you connect the G5 to the lower controller it will be talking to drives 8-14.
Therefore you cannot use this setup to backup the data via the G5.
At the very, very least you need a fiber channel switch so that both the XServe and the G5 can connect to the same controller. However, as Tod has already mentioned, it is tricky to get multiple machines talking to the same RAID drives while avoiding corruption (there's no concept of arbitration, or ways of preventing one machine from editing a file that's in use by the other machine).
You have two basic options - one is to implement XSAN, which will handle the arbitration issue, the other is to configure the G5 to mount the RAID read-only. This should prevent the G5 from modifying a file while it's in use by the XServe (which may be sufficient for backup purposes), but you may still run into issues when the G5 tries to backup a file that's actively in use by the XServe.
In all honesty, a better solution would either to get a SCSI card that works with the XServe and do it all there, or use file sharing between the XServe and the G5 and backup over the network - it'll be slower, but a lot more reliable.

Fiber switch xserve raid

Hi I have recently redone my home office. However the one issue that I did not account for was expandibility of the Xserve Raid in my topology. I currently have a single fiber link from my Mac Pro to my Array. I want now to utilize both channels of my Raid Array and the additional 2 channels of a Raid that I recently purchased. I would presume the answer would be a fiber switch with at least 5 ports, however was hoping someone with more experience could validate my opinion as well as recommend a CHEAP (AKA eBay) solution for me to accomplish this.

I think what i have not made clear is I wired fiber in my walls, and only have a single port where my Mac Pro is located. So I would like to move my 2 Raids to another room in a xRack, and run a single fiber cable from the matching port to a Fiber switch and then extend it to the 4 fiber ports on the Raids.
So visually,
                                                  RAID Port2
                                                       |
                                                       |
MACPRO -------Fiber---SWITCH-------RAID Port1
                                                  |    \
                                                  |      \
                                              Port3     \
                                                           Raid Port 4
Hopefully that comes out properly, but I think explains my issue. Not sure a 4 port card would help except have 3 additional ports.

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

Easiest solution for adding Fibre Channel Tape Backup to Xserve RAID setup

I'm interested in getting a Fibre Channel LTO-3 tape library such as the Exabyte 221L for my Xserve RAID/Xserve G5 setup. I realize there are SCSI LTO-3 solutions that are less expensive than FC, but I'd prefer not to have to add a SCSI card to my Xserve, mainly because I'd have to pull the video card and run the server headless (horrors!). However, I understand that I must get a Fibre Channel switch to allow the LTO library, the Xserve, and the Xserve RAID to communicate... you can't just daisy chain FC devices. The least expensive switch I can find is the new QLogtic SANbox 3050 for about $1800. For my situation, in which these will be the only FC devices I'll probably ever use, does this switch sound appropriate? The specs on the switch can be found here: http://www.qlogic.com/products/sanbox/sanbox_3050.asp.
Xserve RAID & Xserve G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

For simple environments like yours, it's trivially easy. You must plug everything in, and you're good to go... as simple as a network switch.
Now if you start adding multiple hosts (i.e. plug in a second Xserve or G5), you need to be careful, because in the default configuration everything is "wide open," so every device can see every storage LUN. This would actually be problematic, as systems could (actually, would) corrupt each other's storage. When you get to this point, you'll need to look at either zoning the ports on the switch, or using LUN masking on the Xserve RAID to allocate specific pieces of storage to specific hosts.
But for now, just get the switch, plug everything in, and you're off.
BTW if you mark "answered" for me, versus for the thread overall, it helps me out a bit in this forum ranking system, whatever it is.
Cheers.

Fibre channel lights on Xserve RAID

I have a G4 Xserve 1.33Ghz connected via Apple's Fibre channel card to a Xserve RAID. 3 drives installed, RAID 5 and a hot spare. The drives are installed in bays 1-4, but the fibre channel activity light is off on the left one, but active green for the right one. There are no drives in bays 8-14, the RAID controller is active.
Surely the left light fibre channel light should be active, and the right one off.
Any ideas, thanks

Hmmm.
I recall the lights on the RAID might be the reverse of what's expected? I'm not 100% certain here -- this may be normal behavior.
Can you see the LUNs in Disk Utility? That's where you can usually check. You may also want to try rebooting once -- just in case the LIP message sent when the RAID came online was ignored.
As for the RAID initializing... once you're above 2% or 3% or so it should be visible from the host... the default is to use RAID Now background initialization which means the volume is available for use (and safe to use -- data is protected), though a bit slower while the initialization completes. Initialization takes a long time -- ~30 hours or so.

We have 2 XServe Raid 14x750GB Ultra ATA and rack cabinet, xserve and fiber to donate to anyone who can pick it up (chicago)

Our Studio is holding onto a full rack cabinet, 2 XSERVE Raid 14x750GB Ultra ATA units, Exabyte Tape Back up system (with 750GB tapes) and Xserve all purchased directly from Apple and only used as our video backup system. It's a bit dusty from being out of use, but in excellent condition.
Studio is in Chicago. If you can come and get it, it's yours.
We also have some hot spare parts that came with the purchase.

I'd love to but need whoever wants it to come and pick up (Third Floor Studio ) The Rack, can of course be emptied, but those muther's are heavy Not sure it would be worth you paying moving guys to deal with?

XServe RAID disks not showing up in Disk Utility

I have a new (to me) xServe RAID box and I'm stuck, the stays lights are green the fiber link light is green on the RAID and not lit on the PCI card but shows up as green in the fiber link section of the settings tool but the RAID array doesn't show up in Disk Utility so I can't format the drives.
I set up the disks as Enhanced JBOD using RAIDadmin and I've deleted and created it a couple of times, I'm just not sure what else I should try, I've read the manual but. Can't find any suggestions of what's going wrong.
Thanks

Port 1: Link Established
2Gps
Point to point
Status light green
In the system Profiler I'm not sure what you're asking for, I'm running 10.5.8 standard not server.
the fibre channel shows link established 2Gps and cable type copper but nothing else, the disks & RAID controller don't show up anywhere I've looked.
RAID Admin shows the JBOD disks as online and lists the LUNs etc.
System looks fine, only error is missing second power supply.

Xserve RAID installing Firewire 800

Hi,
would like to know if it is possible to replace nor insert a firewire800 card on an Xserve RAID?
at the moment we can't afford yet to use Fiber Channel, so we are wondering if we can use the RAID in firewire connection?
Let me know...
Best Regards

Using XServe RAID? No.
The XServe RAID uses a Fiber Channel interface to the host system. FireWire is not an option.
Im not sure I understand your question, though. The cost of the Fiber Channel card for the host system is $500, not much when you consider the cost of the XServe RAID itself. If you already have an XServe RAID then there's not really much additional cost.
On the other hand, if you don't have an XServe RAID and you're looking for a RAID solution (not necessarily an XServe RAID), then you can build a RAID system out of any attached drives, whether they're FireWire, S/ATA, SCSI, or any other supported interface.

XSERV RAID FIBER CHANNEl

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