XServe and XServe Raid Configuration

Hello Community,
I have taken over IT for a photography company. We deal with huge amount of data (3 GB files) on a daily basis. We are running a FMP database too.
We are trying to upgrade some of the computers to Snow Leopard since we are running old software (hopefully Lion by the end of the year). We have to upgrade in stages since we are still running G5 servers with Tiger and FMP 6.
We have:
* G5 Server and 1 Node
* Intel Server (2008) and Intel Server (2009) (NEW)
* 3 Xserve RAID (1-NEW)
Just found out that Xserve RAID only uses Ethernet for admin and that the extra port is redundant. This frees up ports on our switch since we have been plugging them all in on the same network.
Currently
* Server 1 plugs into RAID 1 using fiber cable (both ports) also runs FMP server and our FTP
* Node plugs into RAID 2 using fiber cable (both ports)
NEW
* Intel server 1 plugs into RAID 3 using fiber cable (both ports) (Not turned on yet)
We know XServe RAID only supports 2Gb/s fiber channel. Is that 1Gb/s per cable?
Does anyone know of a better way of configuring this server layout?

To join, or bond your ethernet ports, you need to delete your separate network interfaces in System Preference and create a new link aggregate interface. This article is for 10.6 but the theory is the same in other versions of Mac OS X and Server:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.6/en/asa7873dc0.html
You will need to configure your switch with a LACP port bond as well. As dawendt has mentioned - if your network is based on 10/100 switches then making a 2Gbps link aggregate on your XServe won't help.

Similar Messages

Two Xserve and Xserve RAID configuration advice

I'm configuring a brand new set-up and I'm looking for input in RAID configuration.
Basically I have two essentially identical Xserves: 2.3x2, 80x2, 500 and a fully loaded XRAID running 6 drive RAID 5 with a hot spare on each side all running through a fibre channel switch. One Xserve is slated to be a pure fileserver and the primary XRAID access box and the other will handle web/email/database serving etc.
I'm going to use the first 80 as a system drive (mirrored to the other 80 for redundancy) and I wanted to carve out about a 500gig partition of one of the RAIDs for the webmail server to use as its data drive so it would have the RAID 5 protection. Unfortunately to properly get this configuration I think I'd need to heavily slice one of the RAIDs and then use LUN masking to hide the drives from the respective machines. I guess I could then use Disk Utility to to concatenate the remaining slices back into a single volume - but this seems like adding layers of complexity to what seems like it should be a simple task.
Another thought I had was to re-create the RAID of one side as a 5 disk array, use the extra 500 gig drive as a mirroring drive for the internal Xserve 500 and while I couldn't swap them out directly I could replace a 500 (if it went bad) and use the mirror to bring it back to an immediate pre-failure state relatively quickly.
At this point I'd settle for mirroring one Xserve 500 to the other Xserve 500 which would give me a direct swap-out replacement - but I don't know if that's even technically possible. It has gotten complicated enough that I'm considering simply using the internal 500 as the data drive and depending on heavy back-ups for protection.
I'm looking for any advice, thoughts or technical tips eveyone might have to offer.
TIA,
=Tod

I must not have explained what I want to do clearly enough. The complication is that I want Xserve 1 to see Array 1 and 80% of Array 2 and Xserve 2 to see the remaining 20% of Array 2, but neither must be able to see the same section at the same time or very bad things can happen.
The only way I'm aware of to do this is to slice all of Array 2 into 20% slices and use LUN masking to make 4 slices visible to Xserve 1 and the 5th slice visible only to Xserve 2. I could partition Array 2 into 80% and 20% partitions and then unmount the 80 partition from the Xserve 2 and unmount the 20 from the Xserve 1 using disk utility. But the potential for something bad happening down the road exists unless I can find a way to suppress volumes from mounting. (I saw this hack: http://www.macgeekery.com/gspot/2005-12/hiding_partitions but need to investigate much further before actually trying it.)
Also the back-up unit is tied into the switch and therefore everything needs to run through the switch.
Thanks,
=Tod

Xserve raid configuration

All,
I have 10-12 users for file sharing on an open directory PowerMac G4 and jsp websites on an Xserve G5. I want to use RAID for storing the home directories as well as other shared folders and quickime movies that need to be accessed by the Xserve G5. Do I need to have Xsan? What for? Will I also need another machine as a Meta Data Controller?
Thanks!

To join, or bond your ethernet ports, you need to delete your separate network interfaces in System Preference and create a new link aggregate interface. This article is for 10.6 but the theory is the same in other versions of Mac OS X and Server:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.6/en/asa7873dc0.html
You will need to configure your switch with a LACP port bond as well. As dawendt has mentioned - if your network is based on 10/100 switches then making a 2Gbps link aggregate on your XServe won't help.

Initial Xserve RAID configuration

Can someone clarify the statement "If no DHCP
server is available, the system will automatically use a link local address of 169.254.x.x.". What exactly determines the value of "x"?

It's random, per the Zeroconf specification (once it's chosen, the server will issue an ARP to ensure it doesn't conflict with another device in the subnet). Don't worry, the default subnet mask is 255.255.0.0, so ANY address in there should be visible via Bonjour.

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.

Configure Xserve RAID as a single RAID 5 array?

We just picked up a used Xserve RAID with 14x750GB drives, and we want to configure the entire unit as a single RAID5 array. RAID Utility will let us configure each side as a separate array, but not both sides in a single array. Is this not possible or are we just missing something simple?

No, each side of the RAID is logically separate so while you can create a RAID 5 on either side there is no way to create a single RAID5 of the unit. You can create a RAID 50 and make the 2 RAID5s into a single volume software RAID 0 by using Disk Utility to join the two 5s into a single volume but that's as close as it comes.
HTH,
=Tod

How to install 1 xserve and 2 xserve RAID ??

Hi i'm new at fiber world. Could anyone tell me how can i install 2 xserve raid on 1 xserve? In this moment i have 1 Xserve and 1 Xserve RAID conected directly with 2 fiber cables. I need to buy other xserve RAID but how can i conect it? i have to use a fiber switch? and if this is correct wich switch u recomend?
A link with schematics will be apreciated.
Thx in advance.

In the sense that you can plug everything in and it will auto-negotiate and things will just "show up" then yes it is like an ethernet hub.
You will probably have to do some simple configuration of the Sanbox via their admin tool but as long as you're only using the Xserve/RAID it should be easy because you just have one zone and all full speed ports. The QLogic docs are good, if basic, and the admin tool is pretty straightforward - especially for an easy set-up like this.
The way that fibre is not like ethernet (just so you're aware) is cannot have two Xserves plugged in sharing the same drives. This will work if you try it but horrible data corruption will eventually occur. Fibre is like ATA or SCSI and you can't share it between host computers in it's raw form. Just to be clear.
Good Luck,
=Tod
G5/2.0x2, Dual XServes x2, XRAID, beige G3 501Mhz

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.

Expanding a XServe RAID and Striping

Greetings!
I have an XServe RAID with four 250 GB ADMs inside the 1-4 slots of the Upper or left controller. This one array totals 701.27 GB at RAID 5 showing up on my Desktop as one RAID.
I recently acquired two ADMs, a 750 GB and 500 GB, and I'd like to install them in my vacant second controller on the right, slots 8-9. I'm pretty sure I can create another array with these two drives setting them at RAID 5. Then what I'd like to do is stripe the two arrays, using Disk Utility, and create a software RAID that will show up on my desktop as one RAID. (I currently use this RAID as my Final Cut Pro media drive.)
My questions are: Am I on the right path?
If I stripe them together, I will lose my data on my existing array, correct? (I have the data backed up on another external drive so when I'm done I can copy it back)
I feel is best to have one RAID rather than several. Or should I consider having two RAIDs but being cognizant that I will have to stay on top of of my Final Cut Capture Scratch media folders as I edit? (ie, Two RAIDS = two separate Capture Scratch folders. So I'd have to choose what Final Cut media will be on what RAID, etc. rather than one folder where all the media can go)
My goal down the road is to completely populate the left/top controller with 250 GB ADMs. If I do, I would assume I can expand the side with the 250's by merely using the Expansion function? Would this "upset" the prospect of having a single RAID of two striped arrays?
Thanks in advance!
System: PowerMac G5 (June 2004), Mac OS 10.4.11
Xserve: Upper Controller, 4 ADMs, 250 each, 1 Array, 1 Slice, RAID 5, 701.27 GB Total

William Lloyd wrote:
This doesn't sound like a good idea. You're mixing stuff in a variety of configurations that don't match, and if you want to stripe the two sides, they should match for optimal performance.
As in: they should all be 250 GB ADMs, right?
With the 750 GB and 500 GB drives, your options are RAID 0 (with NO protection) giving ~ 1 TB of storage, or RAID 1 (mirror) giving ~450 GB of storage. The latter is probably preferable.
So I could install them into the right side controller and make an array of the two using RAID 1 (mirror) and end up with 450 GB of storage. I'll get the protection but losing the extra storage because it would defer to the smaller size 500 GB ADM. And I can't add them to the other side where the 250 GB ADMs are because you're not supposed to mix different size ADMs on the same controller. (This is the stuff that is not in Apple's fine print when they sell it to you. You find it out either through Discussion threads or Technical Articles.)
If you were to attempt to stripe this with the other side, you'd have either 1.4 TB or 900 GB of storage, respectively. In the former case, if one of the drives on the right side failed, you would lose 100% of your data on the entire volume.
My option(s) would be: install the two non-compatible sized drives into the right side controller, combine them as a RAID 1 array and then have two separate RAIDs on my desktop, with the second RAID being physically larger than the other but actually smaller because of the incompatible 750 and 500 GB sizes. Then, when editing with Final Cut, I'd have to choose which RAID that I wanted to store my media on.
So if I were you, I'd give up trying to make it look like one volume.
Agreed. But are there any other options I can explore? I purchased the 750 and 500 GB drives naively thinking I could expand the storage of my Xserve RAID by buying larger drives. Now I'm finding out I should have purchased only 250 GB ADMs-- but they weren't available from Apple when I was able to purchase additional drives and no one told me otherwise. Until now.
Thanks for your learned reply. I guess I should have consulted with you/Xserve RAID Discussions before buying anything.

Oracle and XServe RAID

I wonder if anyone have tried setting up an XServe RAID array for tablespaces with Oracle 10g running off an XServe G5. I'm interested in knowing how well (or bad) it performs.
Cheers,
Dan.

I've been thinking about how an Xserve RAID could be used in a RAC configuration under 10g on OS X. It looks like you'd need to connect your hosts and the Xserve RAID to a fibre channel switch and use Xsan to get a clustered file system.
I thought about using the drives in the RAID as raw devices but this won't work as ATA drives cannot have more than one 'login' to them ... Firewire and SCSI can.
I'd like to get RAC working over Firewire just to experiment ... I don't know if Cluster Ready Services will work on OS X yet though - the binaries seem to be there. Anyone tried?

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.

How to configure the monitoring computer to see the Xserve Raid

Finally I got My Xserve RAID.
I mounted It using disk utility as a single big disk.
But i don't know how to use RAID Admin since no List of System on subnet is present.
How do i change these setting on the monitoring computer?
I can write to the Xserve and i can read from it but I cannot use RAID Admin.
The fibre Channel utility is working well, do I have to change the setting of the PCI card?
I'd like to leave It as a single 2.7 Tb disk RAID 5, but sliced in smaller disk (Lun ?)
Please Help.
Thank you in advance
umberto

Now IT is Buidilng the Raid 5 across all the 7 disk. I unmount it from the desktop and shut It down via Raid Admin
Building a RAID 5 array takes hours. You can't shut the RAID down while it's doing this, otherwise you will lose the array settings.
I removed the older system and I added a new one that It has a different IP.
Once you connect with RAID Admin you should change the XServe RAID's configuration so that it has an IP address you can remember. If you leave it set to DHCP then it will probably change addresses every time you start it up.

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.

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

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.

XServe and XServe Raid Configuration

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