Xserve RAID - Two Fibre Ports

I just wanted to clarify the purpose of the two fibre ports on the Xserve and Xserve RAID.
Does using one port allow you to access both sides of the Xserve RAID or is it one port for each side?
Thanks.

The two sides of the RAID are logically separate. You can access one side with each port and to access both sides you need to use both ports.
=Tod

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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.

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

Super Slow Performance with Xserve RAID / Promise Fibre

Hey guys,
I am experiencing a strange thing on both 10.5.8 and 10.7.5 servers (yes these are in the process of being retired). They are sharing out either an Xserve RAID or Promise Vtrak with OS X Server.
We have the fibre channel card and the storage attaches to there and they appear mounted on the desktop.
The problem we are having is that whenever OS X's file sharing is enabled these volumes run incredibly slow! I did a clean install of OS X 10.7.5 on an entirely different machine and it was still bad. All of my tests show that when you turn off file sharing, both AFP and SMB, the performance goes back to normal -- so what can we do here??? These are file servers, so that's pretty much the only thing that needs to work.
Thanks,
Andrew

Slow/poor RAID performance can be down to a number of things. Some of which are easier to check than others.
Some easy things to check are:
How much data is stored on the RAIDs?
Performance really drops off alarmingly once the RAID gets to 85% full. For a 1TB RAID this means you need to keep at least 250GB of free disk space at all times otherwise you will get the poor performance you're seeing. Once it gets to 86/87/88% full performance can drop alarmingly. Yes those few percent points can make a big difference.
How is the data stored on the RAIDs?
Having thousands and thousands of single files stored loosely on the RAID or within one single folder is not a good idea. The Finder can be and is fairly inefficient at drawing the icons for those files that are presented to network users accessing the share point(s). This can/and is perceived as very slow performance as you're viewing the files over a network connection. One way to overcome this 'feature' is to organise the data into logical folders/sub-folders and/or shares.
Are there problems with the file/directory structure of the RAIDs themselves?
Use DiskUtility (or better still DiskWarrior) to repair any issues (generally built up over a period of time) with the storage disks you have. You can't repair permissions using DiskUtility or anything else on a non-OS bearing drive. Don't forget to do this also for your System Drive (which can have its permissions repaired) as well. This will mean the server being off-line for a time whilst the system (OS) drive is being repaired. Before doing this step I would make sure you have a current and effective backup of your System/Server OS as well as all data stored on the RAIDs themselves. Hopefully you should be doing this for your data already?
To understand Disk Utility's repair permissions feature please read Apple's support document here:
About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature - Apple Support

Xserve RAID with fibre switch and windows

I have a customer who potentially is looking at an Xserve and RAID using a fibre switch with a couple of G5s with fibre cards for speed. They also have a Windows machine that they need to access files, but speed is not an issue. Will the Windows machine be able to see the RAID if it is shared by OS X Server via ethernet or does it need a fibre card? Thanks in advance for assistance!
Mac OS X (10.4.3)

You can turn on Windows (SMB) sharing, or you can connect it directly via fibre channel. Note, if you connect it to the fibre, you can't have it access the SAME volume at the SAME time as the Macs are accessing (heck, you can't have the Macs access the SAME volume at the SAME time without software either), without Xsan and the StorNext file system.

Can I boot my Xserve G5 from an Xserve RAID?

As title says, can I boot my Xserve G5 from an Xserve RAID over Fibre?

Hi
No.
HTH?
Tony

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!

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.

Fibre channel lights on Xserve RAID

I have a G4 Xserve 1.33Ghz connected via Apple's Fibre channel card to a Xserve RAID. 3 drives installed, RAID 5 and a hot spare. The drives are installed in bays 1-4, but the fibre channel activity light is off on the left one, but active green for the right one. There are no drives in bays 8-14, the RAID controller is active.
Surely the left light fibre channel light should be active, and the right one off.
Any ideas, thanks

Hmmm.
I recall the lights on the RAID might be the reverse of what's expected? I'm not 100% certain here -- this may be normal behavior.
Can you see the LUNs in Disk Utility? That's where you can usually check. You may also want to try rebooting once -- just in case the LIP message sent when the RAID came online was ignored.
As for the RAID initializing... once you're above 2% or 3% or so it should be visible from the host... the default is to use RAID Now background initialization which means the volume is available for use (and safe to use -- data is protected), though a bit slower while the initialization completes. Initialization takes a long time -- ~30 hours or so.

Xserve RAID Fibre Channel Lights pegged until disk activity

We are having some issues with an Xserve RAID connected to a G5 Xserve running 10.4.8 Server. The Fibre Channel lights on the front are constantly maxed out, but whenever the disk are active the lights die down only to peg again when activity stops. Needless to say, we are having SEVERE access speed issues. Any ideas?

This can happen in a protected RAID set (i.e. RAID 5) if a single raid member drive pops offline and back on again, since the RAID set has to re-build itself from the parity data in that case.
It also happens after creating a RAID 5 volume, as the creation usually takes a few days (assuming you used the 'RAID Now' option), and so you'll see the blue lights.
It also makes sense that the blue light 'spiking' would drop when you do a read/write, as the initialization process has to pause to handle the disk activity.
Are either of these the case?
We are having some issues with an Xserve RAID
connected to a G5 Xserve running 10.4.8 Server. The
Fibre Channel lights on the front are constantly
maxed out, but whenever the disk are active the
lights die down only to peg again when activity
stops. Needless to say, we are having SEVERE access
speed issues. Any ideas?
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

XServe RAID connected to Video Editing Station via Ethernet -Fibre question

I'm looking into switching from ethernet connections from our three desktop systems to the Xserve Raid set up we currently have to fibre. I can't seem to get a clear answer as to if it is possible to just add the cards and cables to the switch we have or if I would have to go the XSAN route in order to have fibre as the direct connection to the RAIDs...
I'm a photographer, not an IT person so please feel free to speak down to my level... : )

In theory GigE ether allows for 1000 Mb/s with a theoretical throughput of 125MB/s and 2GB Fibre is about 70% faster than that at 1700 Mb/s with 212.5 MB/s of throughput.
Now the big differences are that TCP/IP is not optimized for steady stream delivery and you're sharing the connection over a single server that works to schedule fairly and parcel out resources among users. Fibre is a single connection designed to stream data to you so you get to use a lot more of your fibre bandwidth then you do over GigE. At this point the 7 drive array is not able to saturate the fibre so you won't test the theoretical limits of the bandwidth because of the headroom in the system. At max throughput I would expect the drives are putting out something in the range of ~100-130MB/s so even with a direct connection that is your max.
If I was forced to guesstimate I would think you would be getting somewhere between 3-4x faster throughput over fibre. You're certainly more likely to hit the upper-limit of max drive output over fibre so if you say you're getting 100 MB/s over fibre and 25 MB/s over ether then that's about right. If your ether is <20MB/s then it's theoretically possible you could see a 5-6x improvement. Maybe you should test your ether with some transfers and see what your through-put is to make your own estimations.
If an 80GB file takes 55 minutes that then that's about 25MB/s. If you could bring that down by a factor of 3 then that would be 36 minutes of saved - and hopefully billable - time. But if you're getting 40 MB/s a 80GB file would take 35 minutes and then your max savings is probably 15 or 20 minutes and it becomes less compelling depending on how many times a day you do it.
+You've been very generous with your time answering all of my questions, thank you again.+
You're welcome, hope it all works out for you,
=Tod
PS Remember that large single files get much better throughput than many small files on transfer tests. Also you might want to do your own math on what time = what throughput too. Those numbers were off the top of my head.

To Xsan or not to Xsan... bunch of Xserve raids + fibre switch

Hi all,
I have 4 Xserve Raids and a fully licensed Qlogic switch plus an Intel Xserve to share it all.
I went ahead and loaded Lion Server on my Xserve for the "free" Xsan which is shweet but was pondering wether I need the overhead of the Xsan?
My need is just a simple NFS share, nothing fancy.
I was thinking to share 1 Xserve Raid as a volume (striping 2 sides together) and serve the other 3 as another volume (striping 6 sides together).
Any nuggets of wisdom are very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
- Brian

There's nothing in your post that implies XSAN is needed.
XSAN is needed if you want to connect multiple hosts to the fiber channel network - in effect, giving each host direct access to the XServe RAIDs.
Since you stated you want '... a simple NFS share', that implies that the host XServe is sharing the XServe RAID volumes over the network, therefore XSAN isn't required.
You might get better performance by connecting the clients to the fiber channel SAN, but it doesn't sound like an issue for you.

Can you combine the two sides of an Xserve RAID into a single drive?

I am looking to combine my Xserve sides into a single drive so that it will be more efficient for storing beyond hi-def video. I have an Xserve RAID with 14x750GB drives which format in RAID5 down to 4.09TB per side. I want to create a singe 8.18TB drive from these.
Is there an easy way to do it?

Thanks for the info William, I did backup a few important files before this happened, but I would like to get to a few more.
It happened when our IT guy was showing me how to create a new RAID set. He created a set while explaining a few things, then selected the new one he made, and deleted it. Right then, both sets disappeared and were deleted, the empty one he made, and the one we needed. I was watching him, and he didn't select both, just the empty one he'd made. So, I was hoping that there would be a work around just so that I could maybe use a data rescue utility to possibly pair the 2 together long enough for me to back up some files.
If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know.
thank you.

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

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

Xserve RAID - Two Fibre Ports

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