Xserve raid controller ram specs

I've checked on here and found one similar post but was never acutally answered... Does anyone know what the exact specs are on the RAM used on xserve raid controllers?

Hi Scott,
I would say that initial writes were the most effected. If you do a Kona system test you'll notice that the first 256mb's (I assume you use both sides of your raid) write very quickly - probably around 380mb/sec., and then it falls off pretty steeply. It's really nice to have the first gig write that fast. Of course you need to turn on the ram cache under perfomance settings for any of this to work and you have to weigh the risks of using a cache if you don't have the battery back ups or a ups. I run 2 first gen raids as one big raid 50 volume. All of the controllers have 512 megs of cache so my first 2 gigs write at around 700mb/sec.
Smoking!
Sam

Similar Messages

Spare XServe RAID Controller is no SFP - What is it?

Hi
I have a XServeRAID Service Parts Kit from 2003.
The spare XServe RAID controller from the Kit does not have a standard SFP connection. I have no idea what it uses.
Part # 603-4406
Model # CA1009
Can you lead me in the right direction?
Thanks.

The original XServe RAID controllers sported HSSDC2 connectors. The second rev moved to SFP.

XServe Raid Controller Replacement

My XRaid runs fine, then shows a fault on one of the two RAID controllers. The other takes over, and everything works as far as serving files, but the array attached to the RAID controller with the fault will not allow files to be written or created. Reading is fine.
If I reset the controller, shut down the XServe (intel), then reboot the XRaid, all functionality is restored. I'm figuring that I need a replacement RAID controller. Anyone have a good source for the RAID controller? Or a better long-term solution?
Thanks!

Hi
You should still be able to order replacement/exchange parts for the XServe RAID via Apple Service or GSX. If you go to your nearest Apple Repair Centre/Specialist with the XServe RAID's Serial Number they should be able to quote for a replacement/exchange?
Are you sure it's not the FC Cable itself? Have you tried swopping the cables? Do you have another cable you can try instead? Have you tried re-seating the Controllers? Shutdown the RAID, remove the kettle leads, remove the affected controller. If you have a can of air give the inside a good blast and insert the controller.
Tony

Had to replace Xserve RAID controller and now I get Xsan Admin: ERROR: duplicate LUN label RAID1-Left1

I need some help, I had one of my five Xserve RAID boxes fail. The upper controller card needed to be replaced and so we replaced it. But now only one of my volumes is loading and I am seeing the following error in my Console.
7/18/12 9:23:18.550 AM Xsan Admin: ERROR: duplicate LUN label RAID1-Left1
This raid box holds three LUNs. the left is split into two with one being the metadata / Journal for the main volume and the 2nd being the same for my secondary volume. The right side of this box is the second volume while the remaining 4 RAID boxes are my main volume. Here is the rub, the main volume is using the left1 LUN and the secondary is left2. The left2 is the one that is not working and when I go into the LUN info the WWN number does not match the actual id on the raid box.
HELP!!!!
Thanks,
Kevin Rosenthal

Did you try turning it off and on again? I mean, the full SAN shutdown/startup: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4027
You're probably seeing "duplicate LUN labels" because the MDC has seen two LUNs with the same label but different serial numbers since it has been online. The serial number (which I think is based off the WWN) would have changed when the RAID controller changed. A reboot should fix that specific error message.
If the volume still doesn't start after rebooting, then you would want to check the cvlog for that volume.

Had to replace Xserve RAID controller and now I get Xsan Admin: duplicate LUN label RAID1-Left1

after we replace the controller volumes are mounting. Any advice on what to do with the duplicates?

Try reconnecting to the Xsan by closing the window in Xsan Admin, clicking "disconnect", then File -> New -> Connect to existing SAN. If you still see the duplicate LUNs after reconnecting, try shutting everything down and starting back up again in the order provided in this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4027.

G5 Xserve Harware RAID controller - do all drives have to be connected?

Hi,
I am installing a hardware RAID controller into a G5 Xserve. The machine has three drives in it - one 80 GB drive module that has just the operating system installed on it, and two 500 GB drive modules that are currently configured as a RAID 1 array via software. I am aware that I have to reformat the drives after installing the RAID controller, and I have taken appropriate steps for backing the data up. My question, however, is if I will have to attach all three drives to the RAID controller, or whether I can leave the 80 GB module separate (the preferred configuration). Thanks.

Watch out for the firmware bug on the Apple Hardware RAID - doesn't always fully flush write caches on graceful power down (disconnects from the drives before the caches are fully flushed). I turned in a RADAR bug report in November 2005 (RADAR # 4350243), still open. It was a very difficult bug to pin down and create a reproducible test case - causes mystery garbage blocks from space, especially hard to get reproducible results because of the way RAID 5 works on reads. LSI Logic fixed this bug after Apple's code split from the LSI firmware code (the Apple Hardware RAID card is a rebranded LSI Logic megaraid card with Apple firmware), but it seems unlikely that Apple will ever fix this bug because the Xserve G5 and Apple Hardware RAID card are both EOL.
Only known workaround of which I am aware is to disable write cache on all LUNs.
Russ
Xserve G5 2.0 GHz 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8) Apple Hardware RAID, ATTO UL4D, Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u

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.

Newbie lesson - xServe RAID boxes need 2 Controller modules to work well!

So I thought I'd share my experience with my xServe RAID box, because I built it from parts (via eBay) I thought I could run it with a single controller with up to 7 drives until I needed to expand it later, I had all sorts of strange problems:
- Could't build new RAID arrays
- Couldn't update firmware
- Restarting box often led to the array disappearing
- Existing array sometimes didn't show up in Disk Util.
I tried replacing cables and Fibre cards but no change until I added a second RAID controller and then suddenly everything worked great!
Thanks to everyone here for trying to help me out with my problems, the box now runs great
So the lesson here is that an xServe RAID box needs 2 controllers to function properly, with only 1 it runs in some kind of undocumented failsafe mode.

See my response to your crosspost in the Xserve RAID group.

Xserve 2006 RAID Controller

Hi Everyone,
I have an Intel Xserve 2006. Recently the RAID controller card failed so I popped back in the regular SATA controller (that it originally came with) and ordered a new RAID controller.
I am pretty sure I have the correct one for the 2006 model but it does not seem to work. I have no battery on it (thought one would come with it) the original expanded and I am pretty sure broke the other RAID controller.
Any ideas why this new one is not working also? Is it the battery?
Many thanks for any suggestions.
David Lee

Hi David,
Have you got the new RAID card in there now or the SATA backplane? I'm in London as well so will try and help you out as much as I can if you need it.
Contact details on my profile.
Thanks
Beatle

Help on Setting up Xserve Raid

In our department we have three MacPro's, and one G5 Quad. We want to add an Xserve Raid to store and serve hi-res image files to each workstation. There is a company wide network (intranet) to which we have aready added the workstations, along with printers, however our IT people do not support the Mac platform and we are on our own as far as getting the Xserve Raid in the mix.
I am looking for advice as to how best to set it up and what sort of addition hardware or software we might need.
MacPro Mac OS X (10.4.8) 4gig ram
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I'd concur that it's generally a bad idea to use a production machine as a file server. OS X is fairly stable though. Worst case will likely be you'd loose the file server if an errant application hung up the finder. I can't remember the last time I've had an OS X box lock up solid.. though they do occassionally become unusable from the console.
If you're really budget constrained, put it on the tower. Just be careful about the Fibre controller. Apple has made PCI-X and PCI-E versions over the years.
As far as whos controller to buy, Apple's isn't just competative, it's a steal. It's a 2Gb/channel controller and it runs over Copper (not real fiber optic). You can find cheaper FC cards but they are 1Gb per channel. There are also 4Gb per channel cards.. these will generally fall back to 2 or 1 Gb per channel but they are VERY expensive. FC has come down a lot but it's not unusual to find cards with the same specs as Apple's for twice the price. At least one of our sys admins puts Apple's cards in his x86 Linux servers because they are the cheapest cards he can get. (they also work in Windows 2003 machines since they are just rebranded cards from another vendor.. we're running one in a Dell next door.. as a test for the XSan we're building).

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.

Shopping For A RAID Controller

I have seen the Areca brand name on here many times, so I assume they are the best for what we do. But, there are so many models that I have no idea what to look for. I probably won't ever have more than 4 or 6 storage drives plus an SSD system drive. Maybe a couple of external drives and an NAS.
If I have Windows 7 64-bit
i7-2600k processor
ASUS P8P67 Pro motherboard
32 GB RAM 1600
GeForce GTX 580 Amp! from Zotac
AX850 PSU from Corsair
Every component is reasonably fast, bu I am sick of the senseless limitations of this mootherboard. My drives are aging so they need to be replaced.
Which specs are important for video editing? Which brand and models are most popular and shoould I wait for some new release?
Another thought - If a RAID controller is over $400 US, Is it more cost-effective to upgrade to a more capable motherboard/processor with all the ports I need?

What to look for
Brand
Areca or LSI
Ports
8 or more
Card
PCIe-3.0 8x
Cache
512 MB or more
Multi-lane
SFF-8087/8088
Examples
Areca ARC-1882 series or LSI MegaRAID 9285
Warning: You have to realize that on your motherboard adding a dedicated raid controller will entail that your video card will throttle down from PCIe-16x to PCIe-8x mode, resulting in a 10 - 15% performance penalty, due to limitations of the chipset. A dedicated raid controller, especially with around 6 disks always outperforms an on-board raid by a wide margin. To see some benchmark results, look here: Reflections
To see what meets your requirements, also consider the raid level you want to use. If raid3 or raid30, then LSI is out. You can check out what controllers are popular here: Detailed Results but you have to be registered and logged in to access the page.

Iozone website benchmark results on Xserve RAID

Hi,
I'd like to try and find out how the Apple RAID was configured for the
iozone benchmark. The results of the benchmark are here:
http://www.iozone.org/src/current/Xserver.xls
I asked the question directly to iozone and the answer was that the
benchmark was run in the Apple booth at some tradeshow/conference.
The booth guys let the iozone guys run the benchmark there.
The write results in the iozone benchmark are about 2.5 times better than
the write results we are getting so I'd like to try and figure out how it was
configured.
I'm going to be using the Apple RAID in an intensive write database
application running MySQL. Here's some info on my setup:
My system is a Sun v40 4xOpteron with 8Gig of RAM. I'm running
Solaris 10 release 03/05.
The apple RAID has all 14 disks and is fibre connected. The disks
are setup so that the mirroring is done in the Apple RAID. This produces
a bunch of LUNs. These are all striped together at the OS level, so
the setup is RAID 10. Note that this version of the OS only supports
a LUN size of 2TB max.
Thanks for any help,
Mike
Mac OS X (10.4.6) Xserve RAID

The last tab in the spreadsheet tells you how the RAID was configured, namely RAID 5 128 stripes.
From what I recall when I ran iozone against one of my XServe RAIDs, their figures came out a little higher than mine, but not dramatically. I'll see if I can find the data dumps for comparison.
In the meantime I would look at how you're configuring the RAID. publishing a series of mirrors and using striping at the host level seems less-than-ideal. You're forcing the XServe RAID to write the data twice on each controller, as well as requiring the OS to manage which LUNs it's writing to.
(remember, RAID 1 write performance is lower than other RAID levels)
You would be better off running either RAID 0+1 (striping on the XServe RAID with each side mirrored by the server), or RAID 5, leaving everything up to the XServe RAID - the XServe RAID's performance at RAID 5 is not significantly lower than RAID 0 and it eliminates any overhead on the server side.
If it wasn't for the volume size limitation in Solaris I would recommend RAID 50 over 10 (RAID 5 on the XServe RAID, striped on the host) but that would likely exceed the 2TB volume limit.
Other things to check are the write caches on the drive (use only if you're in a stable power environment).

Adding Additional Drives to 3.55 Xserve RAID

So, we just purchased the 3.55 Xserve RAID (7 500gb ADM's). I'm surprised to read that I cannot "grow" the volume by adding ADM's without reformating the volume using OS X. Is this still true?
Our intention was to simply add ADM's as needed, however this is likely not going to work... if each time I need to offload the data and reformat the volume.
Annoyed.

Xsan allows you to aggregate fibre channel LUNs (analogous to "disks") into what are called "storage pools." You then aggregate storage pools into volumes. So to grow a volume, you can either add more LUNs to an existing storage pool, or you can add more storage pools to a volume.
A bit technical.
Keep in mind that to run Xsan, you will need a few things:
1) A fibre channel card for every machine that wants to access the volume over fibre
2) A dedicated ethernet network which is separate, and used specifically for metadata traffic on the volume -- this enables Xsan to do file locking
3) A pair of dedicated metadata controller machines -- preferably Xserves with > 2 GB of RAM, to manage the SAN.
At minimum, figure $20K on top of the storage to get started with Xsan, if you want it to perform well and be reliable. You owe it to yourself to get Xsan training and certified as well -- making errors early in the planning/deployment process can magnify later on.
Xsan is great for what it does best -- high speed, shared, video editing -- but to just give the ability to grow a volume, I personally think it's overkill. If you can stick to one RAID you could probably do a concatenated RAID volume with OS X's built-in RAID.

4 xserves + xserve raid setup?

Hello,
I have ben using xserves independently (no raid storage) for many years now.
Now, I would like to hook all my xserves (G4, G5, intel) to a xserve RAID and have the xserves all share the storage on the raid.
I know this is a broad question, but what do I need to set this up?
These servers are primarily web servers, so no user files are involved.
TIA for any tips/pointers given
P.S. Should I wait on the new RAID (rumored to have switch and sata drives)?
MaBook Pro 2.4 GHZ | 4GB RAM, 7200 HD Mac OS X (10.4.10)

First you have to look at the volumes. Are you planning/hoping to have all servers directly access the same files? If that's the case you're going to need some kind of SAN solution such as Apple's XSAN ($1000 per node, plus a dedicated controller server)
Then, in order to physically connect multiple servers to a RAID you will need a fiber channel switch. This will let the four servers connect to the two ports on the RAID.
All in all, you're probably looking at a $10K solution.
The alternatives are to:
a) divide the RAID into four separate slices and give each node its own slice of the array. This still requires a fiber channel switch, but doesn't need XSAN (you then have to work out synchronization between the different servers), or
b) Turn one of the servers into a NAS server (using either AFP or NFS) and have the other servers mount the XServe RAID over the network.
This solves the synchronization issue (there's one copy of the data that everyone sees), but isn't as fast as a fiber channel-based solution (everything has to go through that one server). It is, however, free.

Xserve raid controller ram specs

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