XServe Early 2008 (MA882LL/A) + RAID card SAS drive capacity question

I've tried searching the web and support forums, but haven't been able to find a clear answer to the following question:
I have an XServe Early 2008 (MA882LL/A) with the Apple RAID card and three 73GB SAS ADMs. It's been working great for the last two years. I'm about to upgrade it to 10.6 Server, and if possible would like to swap in larger drives at the same time (since it'll be down for an afternoon anyway). However, only 73GB and 300GB SAS ADMs were ever offered for this model, and Apple says that the Promise 450GB ADM is not compatible with it. What I can't determine is whether I can put a larger drive (notably, a Seagate ST32000444SS) into the Apple ADM sled. The RAID controller seems to have no problem with large SATA drives in the SATA sleds, which seems like a good sign, but I'd rather not order $1K worth of new drives and discover in the data center that they don't work.
Does anyone know definitively whether or not larger drives will work in SAS ADMs with this model of XServe? The RAID controller firmware is current (hardware rev 1.0.0, firmware rev M-2.0.3.3), if that makes a difference. I've read all the docs I can fine--I'd be happiest with an "I tried it and it did/didn't work" kind of answer .
Thanks much,
Amanda Walker
Reston, VA

Good morning
I am watching this thread as well. I have two of the same servers (without the RAID card) and have wondered the same thing as I migrate to Snow Leopard and as my data drives continue to fill up. Apple techs and local service techs have not been willing to endorse Amanda's solution for me and have stuck to the Apple Drive Compatibility chart which certifies 73 and 300 GB SAS drives only for this model XServe.
Thanks for any info you might provide.
Greg
PS Amanda, I would be interested in one of your 73GB SAS drives in an ADM as a boot drive should you decide to surplus one or two of your drives.

Similar Messages

Xserve (early 2008) with SAS drives

Greeting All,
Can Xserve (early 2008) add SAS driver in any bay of the chassis? Or it will like MacPro need add RAID card in it.
Thanks,
Spin

Yes, SAS and SATA Apple Drive Modules (ADMs) can be mixed in Xserve.
If you want hardware RAID, you need the add-on card.
Quoth the current Xserve technical page "Three independent hot-plug drive bays with support for SATA or SAS drives; support for up to 3TB of hot-plug internal storage using the following Apple Drive Modules:
80GB 7200-rpm SATA with 8MB disk cache
1TB 7200-rpm SATA with 32MB disk cache
73GB 15,000-rpm SAS with 16MB disk cache
300GB 15,000-rpm SAS with 16MB disk cache"
And here's the obligatory official [ADM compatibility article link|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1219].
Other potential expansion options include outboard direct attached storage (DAS) via SCSI or SAS and a PCI-X or PCIe controller, outboard storage via Network Attached Storage (NAS), or outboard storage via Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN) storage via PCIe controller. If you're looking at SAS disks here specifically for performance, I'd tend to go to DAS SAS or FC SAN storage as potential alternatives; they're toward the higher end.

Connecting an xserve early 2008 to xserve RAID, Connecting an xserve early 2008 to xserve RAID

We have an xserve early 2008 that we want to hook up to a xserve RAID. What do we need in order to do this?

Hi
A Fibre Channel Card installed in the XServe and at least one Fibre Channel cable. If your XServe RAID has both controllers populated with drives you'll need two.
You should find these manuals useful?
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/XserveRAID_UserGuide.PDF
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/XserveRAID_AdminDiskUtility.PDF
HTH?
Tony

HT3571 ATI Radeon X1300 on (Xserve Early 2008)

After installing Snow Leopard, the max resolution when connecting the CD 30 inch to the XServe (Early 2008) is 1280 x 800. Under Leopard, the CD worked with 2560 x 1600 as it should be.
No software updates pending, I am at 10.6.8. When disconnecting the monitor, the max resolution rises to 1680 x 1050.
The X1300 is the original Apple "Xserve Graphics Upgrade Kit" and works properly, but not under Snow Leopard.
What can I do?

OK. So it is an 8-core Pro.
Cool.
You would think it would be a straight swap, but newer GPUs take far more power so require a seperate power line to keep the power coming to the card as pure, fast and reliable as possible so that there isn't a large current draw through the mainboard of the Mac Pro.
The power cable should be included in the kit.
I would research it again though. Check out eBay if in doubt!
MaX.

Apple Raid Card, multiple drives and volumes

Hallo,
my xserve (early-2008) has an Apple Raid Card and two 300GB SAS-drives installed (mirroring).
Is it possible to install a third disk (300GB SAS) and to use it as a separate Volume ?
Disk 1 (300GB SAS) - Apple Raid Card mirroring: Volume 1 (300GB)
Disk 2 (300GB SAS) - Apple Raid Card mirroring: Volume 1 (300GB)
Disk 3 (300GB SAS) - Volume 2 (300GB)
How do I have to set this up using Apple Raid Utility ?
Thanks for your help !

Is it possible to install a third disk (300GB SAS) and to use it as a separate Volume ?
Yes. Of course.
How do I have to set this up using Apple Raid Utility ?
No. A third drive should just appear on the desktop. You only need RAID utility if you want to add that drive to an array, which doesn't sound like the case here.

Early 2008 Mac Pro Raid + Radeon 4870

So far this has been a very disappointing experience in upgrading to SL!
I have an early 2008 Mac Pro with Apple software RAID as my boot drive, SL of course is not seeing this as a possible install drive as others have experienced. I have tried to boot directly off of two different SL retail upgrade disks but the installer crashes every time (I've verified that the drive boots off of other disks). I'm starting to suspect that it may be an issue with the Radeon 4870, has anyone else with a similar setup had any success in upgrading to SL? I'm going to try installing the original video card to see if that helps, otherwise it looks like I will be doing an install to a new hard drive from within Leopard.

I've got a 2006 Mac Pro, the first gen one. I've got a flashed PC 4870 and a three disk software raid of 640GB Western Digital HD's, Model: WDC WD6400AAKS-00A7B0. When I ran the install disk from Mac OS, I couldn't install to the raid, it didn't show up as a volume that could be installed to. However when I restarted from the DVD I had no trouble installing onto the raid at all. The install finished without a hitch. I also ran an install to my Intel X25-E and didn't have any trouble there either. So I know it is possible to get the install to work with a raid and a 4870.
Obviously my setup isn't exactly like yours though. But that's the best I can do.

RAID Card/SAS Controller Options for MacPro1,1

What options do I have with a MacPro1,1 for a SAS controller and/or hardware RAID?
The two products on the apple store (linked below) both have unfavorable reviews. It is also unclear what MacPro models the two cards work with.
My target configuration is 4 SAS drives in RAID 5.
Older? 256MB cache raid card: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MA849Z/B
Newer? 512MB cache raid card: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB845Z/A
Thank you to for reading and for any assistance you can offer.

Any app on the iPad which has the ability to connect to the Mac over the network shouldn't care whether the Mac Pro is wireless or wired - provided your network is configured so that the iPad and Mac Pro are on the same subnet (basically their IP addresses need to be the same except for the last number). Have you tried using the controller app with the Mac Pro wired as it is?
Matt

MacPro RAID card - best drives?

Hey, anybody have any experience they'd like to share on a good set of drives to go with the Apple RAID card? I want to get 4 and I'm looking for maximum speed, but I can't break the bank, so no Raptors.
cheers,
-r

Well, save your $$ and just DON'T! get the Apple RAID card, then you could afford some decent drives.
600GB 10K VRs $279 x 2
OWC SSD 100GB x 2
As for what drives, bare in mind -
If you read the Apple Support Mac Pro link to RAID card FAQ:
Question: *Which drives does Apple support for the Mac Pro RAID Card and the Xserve RAID Card?*
Answer: Only Apple SATA drives and Promise 450GB SAS Drive modules sold through the Apple Store are supported for use with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009) and the Xserve RAID Card (Early 2009). Apple 300GB SAS Drive modules are supported with the Mac Pro RAID Card (Late 2007) and Xserve RAID Card (Early 2007). Drives must be either all Serial ATA (SATA) or all Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives. SSD drive modules are not recommended for the Apple RAID Card because these drives use their own on-disk cache and cannot take advantage of the protection provided by the battery-backed cache on the RAID card.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1346#faq8
People do try and use retail SATA drives, with mixed results. I have never seen anyone mix SAS and SATA.

MacPro Raid Card single drive size limit

OK this is a follow up to a previous question about the upper size limit of a single HD that the Macpro Raid card can address.
It was pointed out to me that "The Apple RAID card cannot address more than 2.2TB of a drive" by Mr. Grant Bennet-Alder. So I am assuming that a 2TB SAS will work.
I plan to RMA the 4TB drive (that was not recognised), so my question is will this drive work instead?
Seagate Constellation ES 2TB 6GB/S SAS 7200RPM 3.5in (ST2000NM0001) Hard Drive - setup as JBOD.
It's not that I don't believe what Grant has said, it's just that I don't want to RMA this drive as well, using the old wood working philosophy of 'measure twice, cut once.'
And I spent 2 hr looking for this info on Apple's support site without any luck.
SYS INFO
MacPro 5,1
2 X 6 Core 2.93 GHz Xeon
Mac Pro RAID Card
Bay 1: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS -JBOD
Bay 2: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS - Raid set 1
Bay 3: 450GB Seagate Cheetah SAS - Raid set 1
Bay 4: 2TB Seagate Constellation (potential drive) to be JBOD
Raid set 1: Raid 0 - 900GB
OWC Mercury Accelsior 240GB
ATI Radeon HD 5870
Mac OS X 10.6.8
All software updates current and applied
Thanks
-Robert
Previous thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21675625#21675625

If a Disk Fails If a RAID set or volume becomes degraded because a disk has failed, you can use RAID Utility to identify the disk that needs to be replaced.
Note: If your RAID setup includes a spare drive, it is automatically incorporated into the RAID set, and the set switches from degraded to good as soon as the recovery process finishes. If there is no spare, the set will remain degraded until you replace the failed drive, and if a second drive fails before you replace the first, you could lose data.
To replace a failed disk:
1 Open RAID Utility, select the RAID set or volume that is displaying a problem status indicator, and look for a drive bay with a red status indicator. The bay numbers in RAID Utility correspond to the numbered drive bays in your Mac Pro or Xserve.
2 Replace the bad drive module.
3 Use the Make Spare command to set up the new drive as a global spare. If no spare was available when the original drive failed, the RAID card uses the new spare immediately to rebuild the affected RAID set and volumes. If a spare was available at the time of the failure, it is already incorporated into the affected RAID set, and the new spare remains available until it is needed.
https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA318/en_US/RAID_Utility_User_Guide.pdf

Mac Pro with Apple Raid Card - 1 drive OSX (JBOD) + 1 drive Vista?

Can anyone walk me through what I'd need to do to set up an early 2008 model Mac Pro with the Apple Raid Card pre-installed and 2 500 gig drives, so that I can have OSX on the first drive and Vista on the second?
I know it defeats the purpose of the raid card, but...
What I've done so far is:
1. Removed drive #2
2. Install and using Raid Utility, add the first drive as a JBOD set/volume
3. After install, shut down the machine
4. Re-add drive #2
5. Restart
6. Use disk utility to add drive #2
I tried to use bootcamp, but it only wants to put windows on the first drive - which won't work because it is RAID.

Run Vista off an ATA interface in the 2nd optical drive. There is an SATA 2 ATA adapter.
I think you can boot Vista off some RAID controllers, check out Highpoint RocketRAIDs. Should be able to configure the RR.
Boot Vista off USB is a stretch.

RAID card or drive?

My Mac Pro with Apple RAID card will not boot to external FW800 or original install DVD if drives 2, 3, 4 are installed at the same time in any of the bays (i.e. gray screen, no apple, nothing). If I remove or replace any one, or more, or remove all of drives 2, 3, 4 Mac Pro will boot to anything with an OS on it via Opt. key. I'm thinking if any one of drives 2, 3, 4 were bad and drawing too much power the same problem would present when drive 1 (J+ w/ OS) is substituted for any one of 2, 3, 4. Replaced battery on RAID card no effect on problem. Passed Hardware Diagnostic on original Installer DVD. I'm thinking this has to be a RAID card issue. Do they go bad? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Software RAID?
No, I have an the Apple RAID card that came with the Mac Pro, factory installed. RAID set was created with Apple RAID Utility. About testing, D-Genius only does a random/sustained read/write. I like the looks of intech's suite, but just spent $$ on new, replacement SAS drive, they're still not cheap, even with the advent of SSDs. Anyway, I had saved a profile of the DG benchtest on the previous RAID volume. When I ran the new disk the results very closely parallel the previous profile very closely. Odd thing is that I'm not sure it was a hardware problem (bad disk). Once I introduced the new disk into the mix, I was able to also re-introduce the old suspected bad disk and it worked. Maybe a RAID fluke??? Maybe the disk was intermittently failing causing the RAID set to fall over? Maybe I'm just cursed....
If you're really board you can check out all the associated posts from when this debacle began:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165864#13165864
Anyhow, thanks for your help!
J.

Install RAID and SAS drives in my Mac Pro

Hello,
I have a couple of Mac Pro machines and I want to install extra drives.
I want to install 2 extra SAS 300GB drives.
I take it I need to install a RAID card also.
Will the drives connect to the RAID?
I don't want them to mirror I simply want them as single drives that I can use for storage.
My main concern is will I be able to mouint and access these SAS RAID drives without having to reinstall the OSX System?
Thanks,
Dean

Not quiet sure I follow your plan here.
I want to install 2 extra SAS 300GB drives.
OK, no problem, assuming you have 2 spare bays.
I take it I need to install a RAID card also.
OK, no problem there, either, assuming you have a spare slot.
Will the drives connect to the RAID?
Umm, if you connect them, yes. It doesn't happen automatically
I don't want them to mirror I simply want them as single drives that I can use for storage.
This is what I don't understand - why use the RAID card if you're not planning on RAIDing the drives?
My main concern is will I be able to mouint and access these SAS RAID drives without having to reinstall the OSX System?
If these are additional drives it won't affect the existing system at all. They're completely separate.
If, on the other hand, you want to take the existing system and move it to a RAID volume then yes, you'll need to do some kind of work to preserve your data, but it's not clear that's what you're trying to do.

RAID Card or Drive Failure ? ?

My Mac Pro with Apple RAID card will not boot to external FW800 or original install DVD if drives 2, 3, 4 are installed at the same time in any of the bays (i.e. gray screen, no apple, nothing).
If I remove or replace any one, or more, or remove all of drives 2, 3, 4 Mac Pro will boot to anything with an OS on it via Opt. key. I'm thinking if any one of drives 2, 3, 4 were bad and drawing too much power the same problem would present when drive 1 (J+ w/ OS) is substituted for any one of 2, 3, 4.
Replaced battery on RAID card no effect on problem. Passed Hardware Diagnostic on original Installer DVD. I'm thinking this has to be a RAID card issue. Do they go bad? Any opinions / suggestions would be greatly appreciated - Thank you,
John
My other related posts that document history of problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165862#13165862
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13165864#13165864

In hindsight... this was posted as part of 10.6.7 release fixes...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3631

Apple RAID Card, All Drives RAID?

For those of you who have the Apple RAID card, I was wondering if all the drives are configured into one RAID set? Or can you have say a single boot drive, a third data drive and then have the remaining two drives set up as a RAID 0?

I was interested in using the RAID card for 2 drives only, for storing captured video.
I don't want to use the RAID for my boot/data drive.

HT201364 Xserve (Early 2008) with Snow Leopard 10.6.8: How far can I upgrade ? Can I upgrade to an OS X Server version? Is any OS X Lion version compatible?

How far can I upgrade ?
Can I upgrade to an OS X Server version?
Is any OS X Lion version compatible?

Open the Mac App Store and try downloading Yosemite. If you get told it's incompatible, the computer's also incompatible with Mountain Lion and Mavericks; if desired, choose About this Mac from the Apple menu, check if the computer has at least a Xeon or Core 2 Duo(not Core Duo) CPU and 2GB of RAM, and if it does, click here and order a download code for Lion 10.7.
Back up your data and check your applications for compatibility before upgrading. In particular, Mac OS X 10.7 and newer don't support PowerPC programs such as versions of Microsoft Office prior to 2008.
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XServe Early 2008 (MA882LL/A) + RAID card SAS drive capacity question

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