Connecting from pc to xserve raid ars technica openforum. Caches like those used by hardware raid controllers, are not possible with software raid systems. I suspect apple has no intention of providing vmware with drivers for their apple raid card. As i mentioned, i have a 2tb usb drive running timemachine backups and a. This application can also be used to modify any raid. The adaptec raid manager, also known as the sun storagetek raid manager, is documented in the sun storagetek raid manager software users guide 8201177. Host controller types software a software based raid system is based entirely at the operating system level. Cpu power increases have changed the equation on the hardware vs. Unlike the xserve raid card, the mac pro version cant support.
Apple also struck a deal with promise technology and qualified its products for use with xsan 2. All of these sas host bus adapter options can control disks on the server blades all the blades except x6450 can have onboard disks and on the disk blade as well. With the new xserve raid firmware you can slice the arrays with up to six slices, and allocate the slices to the hosts separately. Its highperformance, highavailability features include.
The apple fibre channel pci card is an lsi card that accepts sfp connectors, like gbics. Works great for 2tb and under drives, but alas my storage needs will exceed 8tb in the future. Enable the xserve raid controller cache and drive caches to improve. If youre administering an xserve raid array, youll probably be interested in apples xserve raid admin tools v1. So we tend to like raid 0 which while called a raid is technically not one. So in effect, ive got 4tb of apple raid 5 doing nothing. Xserve raid 3u fibre channel raid box you cant hook an xserve up to a powermac and use its storage, so i suspect your users have an xserve raid storage device hooked up via a fibre card to a. Do a bit of research and find sata drives that will work with the firmware. Xserve raid holds up to 14 hotswappable apple drive modules now with up to 10. Find answers to raid, software vs lsi card, pros and cons from the expert community at experts exchange. There is no update to software or firmware that will enable 48bit or 64bit addressing as of 2018. Both of the apple xserve raids controllers can manage the array. This was the first result that came up when i searched, i have no affiliation.
Xserve raid monitoring plugin free software downloads. This rem card is named the sun blade raid 5 expansion module. For information about starting up the xserve for the first time, configuring the server software, and using the xserve, see the xserve user guide on the admin tools disc that comes with the xserve. If the raid card is installed in riser 2, or in the bottom slot of riser 1, with only one cpu is installed, the following can happen. Because this would lead to data loss when a power failure occurs, the hard disk caches should be deactivated.
With the hardware raid functionality turned off, are hardware raid based sata2 and sas controllers more or less likely to hide read and write errors than nonhardware raid controllers would. Firmware is the name given to software that is written into memory circuits, such as. Youll have to pore over the manual or contact the manufacturervendor of the raid card to. When they fail after a year or two in service you can bet the youll fork out to replace it that the cell isnt dead, but instead has got itself into a stuck state where the raid card is confused about what to do with it. Apple xserve raid external fiber array with 14 500gb. Two of these applications, raid admin and fibre channel utility, are included on a cd with the system. Xserve raid is a massstorage device that was offered by apple inc. This download provides intel raid web console 3 version 007. Serveraid m5015 and m5014 sassata controllers withdrawn.
The raid cards are 3ware amcc 9590se12mls, so each card can manage 12 drives. Designed to solve some of the shortcomings of software based raid. They each can be set up as raid 0, 1, 3, 5, or jbod. We can update the raid card firmware using the lsi raid manager which can be downloaded from braodcomm avago website from the below link. Questions about the mac pro raid card and xserve raid card, apple. Xserve raid 3u fibre channel raid box you cant hook an xserve up to a powermac and use its storage, so i suspect your users have an xserve raid storage device hooked up via a. Jul 15, 2008 aside from the benchmarks, the hardware raid card also supports hotplug replacement, mitigating downtime to swap out dead drives. With a mac pro raid card or xserve raid card installed in your computer, you can use raid utility to turn your computers internal disks into storage volumes based on raid redundant array of independent disks schemes that improve performance and. Xserve raid storage for multiple hosts vi apple community. Apple xserve raid card storage controller raid sata 3gbs sas series sign in to comment. Installing the host bus adapter card in the host system 38. Firmware for lsi 92608i92808e raid card all operating systems thinkserver systems. Ensure that xserve raids are running the most recent version of xserve raid firmware.
Jan 23, 2007 raid admin is the xserve raid s powerful remote management software that dramatically simplifies setup and monitoring of storage volumes. Brand of drives apple uses in their adms apple xserve. Apple xserve raid card storage controller raid sata 3gb. Intel raid on your motherboard, is something people in the linux world refer to as fake raid and what is does is that a raid bios on your motherboard handles raid commands using the cpu to issue those commands rather then a dedicated raid controller, so under heavy readwrite situations, disk io will use more cpu resources than a real. Apple xserve storage array recommendations spiceworks.
With this and an ethernet cable you can access the raid and see whats going on with it, configure, etc. This is entirely dependent on the raid card in question. Xserve raid monitoring plugin free software downloads and. I do not have either software or hardware raid set up on this server. Dec 21, 2017 we can update the raid card firmware using the lsi raid manager which can be downloaded from braodcomm avago website from the below link. Raid admin is the xserve raids powerful remote management software that dramatically simplifies setup and monitoring of storage volumes. What will be the gain from setting up raid 5 vs raid 1 i realise that an extra drive will be used by raid 5. Fortunately my xserves have ssds, so i installed esxi 5. Setting up hardware raid volumes with lsi and adaptec host. This wont be known until an actual release of the hardware when new firmware and admin software is. Fwiw, pull down a copy of the xserve raid admin software from apples support site. The apple network server ans was a line of powerpc based server computers designed, manufactured and sold by apple computer, inc.
You can perform the update either by using software update apple menu. The difference between current motherboards onboard raid options with ssds in raid and using a dedicated raid solution card is slight and therefore far more attractive to users. Xserve raid is a costeffective answer to the growing storage requirements of businesses and institutions everywhere. The update is recommend for all mac pro late 2006, early 2008 and xserve late 2006, early 2008 systems with the apple raid card. I am planning to install 4 x 1tb hard drives, plus a raid card. Ensure the board card combination is a compatible one. It was codenamed shiner and originally consisted of two models, the. Built entirely from aluminum, the mini pro raid v3 utilizes the highest quality construction for power users who need dependable storage. The apple pro raid card uses a 32bit word for block numbers. Sata based xserve raid prototype uncovered macrumors. The physical drive would be the actual piece of hardware while the logical drive would be the drive visible to the end user. Installing xserve raid hardware and software 57 about raid storage 58 how raid works 58. This wont be known until an actual release of the hardware when new firmware and admin software is available. If these are fine, then it comes down to what the best array configuration is.
So read the list of fixes, compare the date of your current firmware, and read the list of fixes, which followed the date of your firmware. Oem new battery for apple xserve raid card 9228946 92300864 battery 20062009. Xserve raid held up to 14 hotswappable ultraata hard drives, and had a capacity of. See using raid admin with other operating systems and the download is at support. In some instances, the cd with raid admin and fibre channel info is supplied with other systems or cards as well. Best practices for data integrity atreid integrateur. In testing both software and hardware raid performance i employed six 750gb samsung sata drives in three raid configurations 5, 6, and 10. Xserve raid held up to 14 hotswappable ultraata hard drives, and had a capacity of 10.
It takes nearly 24 hours to format a seven disk array in a raid 5 configuration. Apple xserve raid card storage controller raid sata. Xserve raid article about xserve raid by the free dictionary. You use three applications to configure and monitor your xserve raid system. Is there anything i should do before trying the fixes below. Jan 19, 2007 sata based xserve raid prototype uncovered. About software for xserve raid systems you use three applications to con. I love mine and it works tirelessly, providing me with lots of storage and redundancy for both my macs and the pcs that live in the house. Assuming your xserve has a fiber card, the easiest and cheapest way to get up and running is to purchase a used xsan with no drives.
Jun 15, 2011 the card in my esxi box came out of an xserve g4. About software for xserve raid systems you can set up and manage an xserve raid system from a host computer or a remote computer. Raid levels and the types of arrays you can set up on an xserve raid system, see chapter 7, raid overview, and chapter 8, planning raid storage for the xserve raid system, in the xserve raid users guide. Apple raid card firmware update for mac free download and. Based on these test results you might consider buying some cheaper sata ports and stripe two software raid 6 arrays instead of buying a hardware raid card with the same budget. The raid card supports up to 4 sas serial attached scsi andor 3. Unfollow xserve raid to stop getting updates on your ebay feed. Software raids are highly portable to other similar systems. Raid, software vs lsi card, pros and cons solutions.
Id post a link but apparently im not cool enough yet. With the hardware raid functionality turned off, are hardwareraidbased sata2 and sas controllers more or less likely to hide read and write errors than nonhardwareraid controllers would. Apples companion 3u xserve raid system has a 2gb per second fibre channel connection, can store up to 2. Verify your account to enable it peers to see that you are a professional. Raid speeds are measured using benchmarking software, which test. Apple xservemac pro raid card battery repair ifixit. Its an lsi 7202xp pcix card and it looks identical to this card. Nov 02, 2015 i can tell you that outdated firmware has, as in faulty behavior in marking drives as defunct. Ive run the xserve raid admin on windows without any problems you can download the. This download record provides intel raid web console 3 version 7. If you plan to create a raid volume for your os, the recommended. Mac pro and the raid card both have the latest firmware installed.
Ive placed my vms on nfs datastores provided by an old xserve running os x server 10. Ian, my 2006 xserve running lion server is configured with a internal 1tb boot drive and an internal 2tb drive. Underneath the pretty aluminium box, apples raid card batteries are just bogstandard lithium polymer cells with some control gear. As the core aspect of a raid, namely redundancy is not present. This javabased application provides an intuitive interface for creating protected storage volumes, logging events, managing preferences, and monitoring storage hardware from virtually any networked computer over tcpip. Raid, software vs lsi card, pros and cons solutions experts. You use the fibre channel utility to view and modify settings on the apple fibre. Hardware firmware driver based a firmware based raid system is often somewhat mistakenly known as a hardware system. Firmware driverbased raid systems are often located directly on motherboards. Solved should i upgrade raids controller card firmware. Two of these applications, raid admin and fibre channel info, are included on a cd with the system. Updating raid card firmware using lsi application youtube. As likely youll find several updates from current version, to most current.
Raid admin is the xserve raid s powerful remote management software that dramatically simplifies setup and monitoring of storage volumes. To learn about the mac os x server software installed on the xserve, see mac os x. The adapters have two internal minisas connectors to control up to 32 devices and support global and dedicated hotspare drives. A hardware raid requires you to have the same controller often running the same firmware to get access to the raid set if the card fails. Boot camp does not allow for installing windows on hardware or software raid drives. Both the ans and the pm9500 have two bandit controllers and two separate. The apple xserve raid is divided into 2 seven disk arrays. Xserves companion external raid array, xserve raid, can be. Notes apple xserve raid platforms and operating systems. Chapter 4, connecting xserve raid to a host system and a network, on page 37 m chapter 5, using the xserve raid system, on page 45 m chapter 6, installing or replacing components, on page 49 for explanations of raid levels and their implementation on the xserve raid system, see m chapter 7, raid overview, on page 57 m. Raid utility application on a computer with a mac pro raid card or xserve raid card.
I will be seeking to obtain high performance from the mac osx environment and high quality data security via the raid system. The raid software layer sits above the device drivers and provides the link from physical drive to logical drive. Note you can configure hardware raid either before or after loading the os on your server module, with one exception. Zfs best practices with hardware raid server fault.
Xserve raid firmware upgrade ascii iden apple community. Apple has discontinued its xserve raid product, but users can still purchase drive modules. You cannot make a 14 disk array in hardware on the xserve raid. Raid v3 is a dualdrive system offering the latest typec connection for compatibility with usb 3. Supports 12gbs and earlier intel raid controllers using mr software stack.
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