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.

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http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/XserveRAID_UserGuide.PDF
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2760?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2758?viewlocale=en_US
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Can someone give me a step by step guide to setting up an Xserve raid please.
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HTH,
=Tod

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No luck on the reset, both via Raid Admin and the reset button on the XServe Raid.
A restore of most of the data has completed onto another storage device.
I can see a power spike or something wiping out the config of both arrays, but to have only one side just disappear and with no way to re-read the raid configuration from the drives, I can't trust the XServe RAID anymore and we won't be going back to using it.
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HI all,
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hi
thanks for your reply,
i have tried to do everything, i removed one of the power supplies at each time, but same. i pressed the power button on the back, but nothing happened.
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=Tod

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First off, I have no idea what any of this stuff does.
Okay, now that that's out of the way...
I have an XServe Raid divided into 4 partitions. Three computers connect to it via a QLogic San Switch 5200. Computer1 sees two partitions. Computer2 sees one partition and computer3 sees one partition.
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I've tried troubleshooting the switch but can't even connect to it. All of this to just let you guys know what's going on.
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If I remove the switch from the equation and just plug the XServe directly into the back of my G5 will all four partitions show up so I can get this data off?
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Camelot,
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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.

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?
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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.

Repair Utility for xServe RAID?

We have an xServe with an attached RAID consisting of four 350 GB drives. The drives are set up as a RAID. Due to storms/hot weather (air conditioning failed) the server restarted and the RAID powered down. The xServe is fine but the RAID is not functioning. From RAID Admin the drives all show up and are OK but the array is not showing up. Is there any disk repair utility that would be useful on a RAID?
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xServe RAID Mac OS X (10.4.6)

The fact that it's showing up as spares is a significant problem. The host won't recognize it until the RAID recognizes the array. There is no separate utility to help you with this, other than RAID Admin.
What firmware version is on the array? If it's 1.5, there's a "recognize array" option that you should try. If it's an older version, I'd tell you it would be nice if you could have gone back in time and upgraded the firmware. Since that's not possible, you should call AppleCare (assuming you have got APS&S for Xserve RAID, or the machine is < 1 year old) and inquire about your options.

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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 raid midplane(?) troubleshooting help

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