Xserve Raid Setup Help

I need some help with a MAC Pro with Xserve that I am trying to help setup. My company is replacing a very old server. They just purchase a MAC Pro with Xserve with a Mac Raid card and 4 x 1TB drives. The server is just going to be for data storage. What is the best way to setup the RAID. Ideally I would like to have the operating system on a different partition with a RAID and the data on different partitions but I do not want a 1TB partition for just the operating system. What is going to be the best way to partition and RAID these drives. Also buy anything additional is not really an option.

It's not entirely clear to me what you have here.
You mention:
MacPro
XServe
which are two distinctly different systems. Do you have one physical machine or two?
I'm guessing you mean you have a Mac Pro with Mac OS X Server and that the MacPro has 4 x 1TB drives attached to the RAID card. That's partly based on the fact that the XServe can only handle 3 internal drives, not 4.
If that's the case then the best way to setup the drives depends largely on your preferences. Personally I'd look at something like a hardware RAID 5 of all the drives (results in a ≈3TB volume) which you can then partition into two parts (one of a few hundred GB for the OS and the rest for the data), but there are many other configurations that would be just as valid.

Similar Messages

  • Xserve RAID setup for mixed platform office

    In our office we have several Macs and Windows machines that regularly read the same files during various tests we run. Unfortunately these files are spread out across various drives on various systems and many of the files are duplicated in many places.
    To make us more efficient as well as provide reliable backup for our critical test files I'm considering an Xserve RAID setup.
    I understand a computer is needed as a controller and an Xserve is typically used for this. Could a Dual 2GHz G5 serve this purpose? It needs OS X Server installed? Does the G5 get a Fibre Channel card in order to connect to the G5 to the RAID and then the rest of the office can connect to the G5 to access the RAID via GigE.
    We are not editing video, I don't see that all the clients need Fibre.
    How about Windows clients, are they able to seemlessly access the RAID just like Macs?

    > I understand a computer is needed as a controller and an Xserve is typically used for this
    Yes, you need a controller, but it doesn't need to be an XServe. Any host will do.
    > Could a Dual 2GHz G5 serve this purpose
    Yes, quite easily. You just need an appropriate fiber channel card in the host that you're attaching the XServe RAID to.
    > It needs OS X Server installed?
    No. You don't even need Mac OS X installed - the XServe RAID is platform agnostic and can be used with Windows, Linux, and other Unix systems.
     > Does the G5 get a Fibre Channel card in order to connect to the G5 to the RAID and then the rest of the office can connect to the G5 to access the RAID via GigE.
    Correct. You'd use some kind of file sharing on the G5 to share the XServe RAID to the network clients. The only caveat is that Mac OS X Client only supports 10 active client connections. If you need more than that you may need Mac OS X Server.
    As for the Windows clients, they can access the RAID volume through the G5, too - you'll just need to enable SMB file sharing on the G5.

  • 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.

  • 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 setup: best setup to  to create a single volume

    Hello,
    I am setting up a 14-disk xRaid but I could not fin an option to "join" the 14 drives to create a single RAID 5 volume from Raid Admin app.
    I could only create 2 Raid 5 volumes, one for each group of 7 disks (6 data + spare).
    The manual says I have to use Disk Utility to join the two volumes into a single one to reach the maximun capacity on a single volume.
    The spare drives should take care of their own RAID 5 (group of 7 disks each), if I am not mistaken.
    Should I use "striped" or "concatenated" raid set in Disk Utility?
    Many thanks for your help!
    Ciao
    Carlo

    Hi
    http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/RAIDAdmin1.2121406.pdf
    page 22. If you've not already done so you may also want to look here:
    http://www.apple.com/support/xserveraid/
    More information on RAID Levels:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NestedRAIDlevels
    Tony

  • Multiple RAID setups in one Xserve?

    Hi hope you can help me, we are a small architecture practice in the market for a new server and we are considering an Xserve and Xserve RAID system. I would quite like to set up the Xserve unit to use two of the drives in RAID 1 to mirror the operating system. My question is it possible and/or wise to have multiple RAID sets in the Xserve RAID unit? For example using four of the bays for 4x500Gb in RAID 1 (1Tb storage) for projects, and then using another 2 bays for 2x250Gb in RAID 1 as well for say Mail, maybe even another 2 bays for holding user home accounts. I understand that with share points this isn't strictly necessary but it seems to make sense to keep functions separate across hard drives for quick replacements. Or is this a lot to ask of a single RAID controller?
    Also how easy is to add storage to an existing RAID set-up without destroying the data?; say we wanted to increase the 1Tb project storage to 2Tb easily.
    Thanks for your help in advance.
      Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

    Andrew,
    I think you are over complicating you setup.
    If you do multiple RAID sets the you are really anti-optimiziung. If you asked "How can I get the least performance and lowest capacity out of a RAID?" then I would suggest three mirrored disks w/ spare per controller.
    You would have far better performance and capacity if you were to put two drives in the Xserve to mirror, then set up your RAID as RAID 5 across 6 disks with 1 spare (default config).
    With Disk Utility you can build multiple file systems on the RAID, so you could slice it up, but again that could be wasting space.
    When you get the RAID setup as one file system do not share the root. Set up sub dirs to share:
    /Volumes/Raid1 --your RAID root, aka mount point.
    /Volumes/Raid1/Mail -- mail
    /Volumes/Raid1/Users -- Home dirs
    /Volumes/Raid1/Projects -- your production storage
    /Volumes/Raid1/Backup -- Save disk images of your server and workstations here.
    And yes, changing the size of a file system means wiping it out and restoring from backup.
    Also consider the 750GB drives, it's a lot more storage for not that much more money.
    Reese

  • 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.

  • Xserve RAID Card: Is setup kept when reinstalling OS?

    Hi everyone,
    I have a new Xserve with 3x 1 TB and the RAID Card. The default setup is JBOD and of course I'd like to change that by booting from the DVD and setting it up. I know that I can convert JBOD to RAID while keeping the already installed OS. But since I plan to reinstall the OS anyway I was wondering if my chosen RAID setup will be preserved this way?
    I believe this is a real Hardware-RAID so this should work, right?
    Thanks
    Björn

    Thanks,
    since the RAID can't be reconfigured while booted off one of the internal drives and since this can't be accomplished remotely using Server Assistant I need to reconfigure it with another (external) system. Is that true?
    I suppose it could also be done directly at the Xserve, but I do not have a Mini Display Port Adapter at hand, so this is currently no option. It seems to work with an external FW drive running OS X 10.5.7 (Client) which has the RAID Utility on it...

  • Need a help on AHCI & RAID setup during Win 7 installation

    Hello,
    Sorry for a newbie question, but I need to reinstall Win 7 Professional with my new rig.
    I would appreciate your help.
    What are the procedures for the windows installation?
    I would like to set up AHCI and RAID controller, as someone had suggested that Intel recommends RAID setup even for non-RAID configurations.
    Here's the spec of my rig:
    Motherboard: P67A-GD65 (B3)
    CPU:  Intel Core i7 2600k
    CPU Fan: CoolMaster V8 (180W)
    RAM: G.Skil F3-17000CL9D (4GBx2)
    GPUs: Palit GTX 560Ti (x2, no SLI)
    SSD: Crucial C300 (64GB)
    Hard Drive: WD 1002FAEX (1TB)
    Optical Drive: Lite-on BR Burner
    Case: Corsair 650D with stock case fans
    PSU: Corsair TX750W
    Thanks in advance

    The board should comes with a Manuel for you to refer on the installation of different drivers for the controllers.

  • Xserve Raid Crash Course Help Needed

    We received two Xserve Raids loaded with 250 gig hard drives, fiber Channel Cards, all cables etc. We are a very small animation company. Is there any manuals or web pages to help us get started and learn how to set this equipment up? Apple manuals do not tell much, Thanks

    Hi
    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
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=51795
    http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/RAIDAdmin1.2121406.pdf
    http://www.apple.com/support/xserveraid/
    I can only speak for myself but all of the above is what I've used and I've not had too many problems. It's advisable to purchase a UPS if you haven't already got one.
    The host machine does not have to be an XServe.
    Tony

  • Basic Xserve Raid Set Up Help

    Please excuse the newbie question I have looked on the forum and cant quite find the info I need.
    Can someone give me a step by step guide to setting up an Xserve raid please.
    We have 2 G5s each running Final Cut Pro. We have just purchased a 7TB Xserve raid from Apple Refurb.
    We would like a very simple set up where each G5 uses half of the Xserve. We do not have a fibre switch at this point - we do not need to share media however we will add this later.
    So our initial requirement is a very basic 2xG5 each with a single fibre connection to each half of the Xserve. Sounds easy but . . .
    We connected one of the G5s to both fibre ports in order to just set up the drives, once done we will simply disconnect one fibre cable and connect to the other G5.
    We thought that the Xserve would be pre-configured to raid 5, which is what we would like to use. However upon connection there was a message that the drives were not readable and needed to be initialised. (the standard apple message if drive is not formatted)
    We ignored this message and went to the drive utility to see if we could mount the drives and although it sees two drives, (each just under 3TB) as you would expect, it seems they are not mountable. (Since the drive utility saw 2 drives I assume that they are preconfigured to a raid)
    So I looked in the raid utility and the only option is to 'add system'. If I click this I get a dialogue box asking for address and password. I understand the 'private' 'public' password and used the host computers IP address as there is no network.
    I thought that this would take us through to the set up that allows you to create arrays and raid types etc.
    So I am a bit stuck.
    If the drives are preconfigured to raid 5 how can I mount them ? as that would be the simple config we need.
    Or do I need to start from scratch ? Hence my request for a step by step guide.
    best wishes and thanks for your help in advance
    Neil

    I can't speak to exactly how the Xserve RAID comes from refurb but in general there are two steps to using the RAID.
    1) Create the RAIDs on the machines. (This takes some 30+ hours.)
    2) Format the new volumes. (This takes 2 minutes.)
    Assuming the RAID came configured RAID 5 on each side and *you didn't shuffle the drive order* then they should still be configured and available that way. Apple doesn't assume that you are going to use the Xserve RAID with HFS+ formatting - they don't even assume you're going to use it with a Mac so I think the volumes are probably unformatted. My guess is that you are between steps 1 and 2 and you will need to choose the volumes in Disk Utility and format them to HFS+ (but probably not journalled if you are doing video work) and partition them.
    You can get and set the actual RAID information using the Java tool RAID Admin.
    You can (and should) connect to one of the ethernet ports on RAID unit, but the computer you connect will need to be in the same IP range (probably 169.254..) to get to the first time and run RAID Admin. This is how you can set-up, tweak and check the status of your RAID through software. This is also where you can set the IP of the RAID to be more in-line with your computers local network if you're using something different.
    HTH,
    =Tod

  • Left side of XServe Raid disappeared.  Please help

    Hello,
    During the cleanup of a bunch of data on right side of my XServe Raid (two raid 5's with spare, one on the left side, one on the right side), the server became very unresponsive (Windows 2k server), to the point where it wouldn't even shut down. I reset the box but when it came back up the left side of the XServe was gone (showed up as a missing drive in disk manager).
    RAID Admin shows that there is no raid on the left side and shows all drives as spares. I've just completed copying all the data off of the still functional right hand side and can now attempt to recover the left side (if that's even possible?). I saw a suggestion that full power offs and restarts (multiple times) has helped another poster. So far I have powered down the XServe Raid 2 or 3 times without the left side raid showing up. I'll be trying a few more times shortly.
    I believe there is an option to recover the raid in RAID Admin? My XServe has an older version of firmware that does not support the RAID Admin Utilities. I have been nervous of upgrading the firmware and possibly irreversibly losing the raid if it isn't already irreversibly gone.
    Can anyone offer any suggestions?

    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.
    I certainly appreciate you taking the time to offer a suggestion Camelot!

  • Xserve RAID NO Power, need help please

    HI all,
    i have Xserve RAID, last night i shut down it normally, today i came to switch on, but its not responding, i can see only the Green LED on the power supply is blinking. NO POWER.
    please if you can help ASAP.
    thanks

    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.
    finally i opened the case of the XSR, i was surprised to find that the power cable between the power button on the back and the main board is disconnected, how i don't know, i never open it before, i vever move it, i don't know it was just disconnected.
    any way, its working now, thanks all

  • Newbie here...Need help for XServe RAID w/ XSAN in Vid Editing environment

    We're establishing an XSAN environment for video editing work flow. We're not new to SAN technology or video editing, but we are new to Xserve RAIDs, XSAN technology, and marrying them together in a production environment.
    We have an XServe RAID at 14x750GB configuration. 1 Xserve metadata server, 1 Xserve Quicktime server, and 4 editing stations (2 MacPro's, 2 G5's) that are in the fiber channel fabric. Each machine has dual channel 4GB cards.
    My PLEA for help concerns any advice this community can offer on RAID configuration, and XSAN configuration to achieve maximum performance. Settings, configurations, etc.
    XServe, XServe RAID, XSAN, MacPro, G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

    Were on the same boat but more like a life jacket
    We only need the Fibre for back-up.
    We have a single Avid Adrenaline on MacPro.
    One Xserve that basically acts as a server for fonts, audioclips, photocatalog and minor back-up via gigabit ethernet.
    Three G5s/MacPro/PC with 2/4GB FC installed.
    One 10.5 TB Xserve RAID.
    Last but not least a QLogic 1400 SAN box for Fibre.
    Nothing is installed yet as were waiting on our Apple rep for some answers with Xsan.
    Were not serving anything as far as external network and everything stays within the confines of our studio.
    My question is that are we missing anything other than maybe getting more ports on the SAN.
    We can live with a few workstations in the fabric.
    Thanks in advance
    XServe   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   OSX Server

  • 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).

Maybe you are looking for