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XServe RAID Finally Makes An Entrance

Posted by Hemos on from the growing-up-fruity dept.

Currawong writes "Apple's very delayed 3U XServe RAID box has quietly appeared on their web site with details. Most interesting being that it uses ATA100 drives, rather than the usual SCSI, making it a bargain at US$10,999 for 2.52TB, especially compared to similar devices that cost up to 10 times as much for the same storage capacity. In addition, ATTO announced at the same time a MacOSX only dual-channel fibre channel SCSI card."

47 comments

  1. I wonder by Oculus+Habent · · Score: 2

    I wonder what kind of acceptance rate the Xserve RAID will acheive. It seems like a useful product, but might only get niche use, as many people still view Apple products as incompatible, expensive, and underpowered, regardless of the truth. *sigh*

    --
    That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
    1. Re:I wonder by fhammond · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It might be useful for people doing SD or even HD editing on the Mac. There are plenty of third-party RAID solutions for the Mac but for this market (i.e. it's gotta work, Apple has to support it and we don't care if it's expensive), the Xserve RAID would be very appealing.

      http://www.lafcpug.org/review_xserve_raid.html

      According to Apple, a maxed-out Xserve RAID can support an HD 1080i stream. That would be quite a thing to see. I wonder how loud this thing is? You'd hope that Apple would have predicted it'd be used by people with a G4 on their desk, not just by people with an Xserve in their data center.

    2. Re:I wonder by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When you get into a purchase this big, nobody buys based on name-brand alone. When you're looking at spending a minimum of about $10,000, you darn well do the math to figure cost per terabyte and you compare features and serviceability and whatnot.

      --

      I write in my journal
    3. Re:I wonder by asparagus · · Score: 1

      Final Cut Pro 4 will come out next month.

      There's some very intresting rumors regarding HD + XRaid and XServes for network rendering floating about. Apple's hopefully going to go after the mid-range Avid market.

    4. Re:I wonder by macmurph · · Score: 1

      When you get into a purchase this big, nobody buys based on name-brand alone. When you're looking at spending a minimum of about $10,000, you darn well do the math to figure cost per terabyte and you compare features and serviceability and whatnot.

      Thats a very logical statement but in practice its not what happens a lot of the time.

      $10k is not much money to a company. When you are a manager spending other peoples money (OPM) you just want to solve a problem not spend your time researching all the options. (Ironically, that same manager might spend 6 months trying to decide what home computer to buy :-) )

      Ive seen CEOs that know zero about computers buy $20k Dell servers just because of the name brand. That company is now out of business BTW.

    5. Re:I wonder by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 1

      $10k is not much money to a company.

      Can you email me the name and address of your company, please? I'd like to send them a resume.

      --

      I write in my journal
    6. Re:I wonder by macmurph · · Score: 1

      Microsoft, Boeing, Berkshire Hathaway, Exxon. They'd probably give you a budget.

    7. Re:I wonder by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Having worked with three out of four of those companies, coincidentally, I can tell you that $10,000 is a very big sum to them.

      To paraphrase the Simpsons, you don't get to be the biggest companies in the world by writing a bunch of checks.

      --

      I write in my journal
    8. Re:I wonder by fhammond · · Score: 1

      ...not the After Effects market (says the Adobe employee!)

    9. Re:I wonder by macmurph · · Score: 1

      You don't get to be the biggest companies in the world by writing a bunch of checks.

      BBC News:

      As Texas governor, Mr Bush quietly set up a committee led by Exxon, with other big oil and chemical companies, to advise him what to do about the state's deadly air pollution.

      Regulators wanted compulsory cuts in emissions of up to 50% - this "secret" committee instead proposed making the cuts voluntary.

      Mr Bush duly steered the polluters plan through the state legislature.

      Huge donations

      Texas anti-corruption law made it illegal to donate money to Mr Bush as governor whilst such legislation was under consideration.

      But that month, Mr Bush declared for his candidacy for president - making the $150,000 donated by committee members and their representatives completely legal.

    10. Re:I wonder by bonez_net11 · · Score: 1

      You really think people won't just buy a name-brand when shopping for such a product? Well, I have to say I do. I don't piece together PC's. I will never piece together a RAID array ever again. If Apple sells it, then it must work with my Apple servers. Why would someone piece together a RAID array to save $500? Or even $1000? Maybe if your not afraid of your machine not working how you would like. But I want my computers to work. I don't want to have to tear my RAID array apart and fix wiring. You see, Apple makes quality products. They don't sell you a Macintosh with 5 different kinds of networking solutions. They give you a ethernet port that works on 3 speeds. They put copper gigabit in my G4 at work. I don't use gigabit. If I was buying a Dell, or another PC I'd have the option of getting gigabit, in _a seperate card_ which I sure as heck don't wish to do. One more thing to support. One more foreign object in the system. With this RAID array, you just plug it in and go. They even sell a _service package_ (extra HD and such) with the unit if you want. You don't have to buy seperate harddrives. You can go to a Apple certified service department and have them fix this for you. Probably for many years to come. _With the same hardware it came with._ Apple is good with this. I remember a RAID array I had on a WinNT server a few years back. One of the harddrives failed. The person who bought the thing (my old boss) bought a extra drive when we bought the beast, so I put it in there. Worked alright. Then a second drive went out. What was I to do? I bought a ultra160 drive and stuck it in there, some oddball drive because they didn't build the drives that we had bought with the thing anymore. So I had 7 drives all the same and one oddball. The system never was as stable after that. I ended up just ditching the whole thing and storing data on their own seperate harddrives within the unit, and using a well built backup system. I guess I don't have all the experience in the world with RAID, but if I had to choose a RAID array for my current 2 MacOS X 10.1.x servers, I would choose the Apple one.

      Think about this, Xserve's are built to be in a rack. The Apple RAID arrays are built to be in a rack (although they don't have to be). Lots of people have their server racks very far away from their offices. Like if you had your server housed at semaphore? (semaphore.net) Or Exodus, or whereever, it doesn't matter. Some businesses keep their servers maybe a floor below the computer people, this means if something breaks, you are right there to fix it. How much time does it take for you to fix it? Does it take $500 worth of your time in the life of the product? Will your savings in brand and/or quality make up for your time? Will the Apple RAID arrays work better since they are all pieced together the same? These things are made to _work_. They are not a empty box, with connectors on it, waiting for some noname, or bandname harddrives to be installed. They all have the same thing. Why? Apple tests to see if the drives they put in their/your equipment work, if the drive works well enough, Apple mass produces it.

      To make sure people don't think I'm on the wrong side here, I have to say this too. Apple's bean counters (yeah, the people who think about MONEY) have created some problems with Apple hardware. I had quite a problem hooking some iMac's and G4's to a managed hub some time back. Why was this? This is because Apple had switched some Ethernet controller switch and it happened to not be compatible with the 10megabit hub we were using. How did I fix this, before the software update was available? I had gone out and bought like 20 or 30 Netgear 5-port 10/100 switches to install in between the machines and the old "POS" hub. I would have replaced the hub with a HP 10/100 switch, but the wiring in the building was not good enough for this, and the hub wasn't my responsibility, it belonged to another department (Computing and Communications). (Yes, I work for a University.)

      Bottom line;
      No Hassle. Saves time. Maybe even saves money.
      You choose. Something you know works? Or something that _may_ work. I will always choose something that just plain works.

      Think I'm lazy? I'm not really. Well, sometimes. But, my servers run. My servers KEEP running. I have far better uptimes than anyone else that I personally know at the University I work at. Some of the big mainframes have been up quite a bit longer, but I don't have the kind of money they spend on the UPSes. I also keep the upgrades rolling in. Some think that uptime matters more, more than updates even. I don't run updates during working hours, I stay late, I do them after hours. Does this cause short outages for a person or two every year? Sure. I do believe that out of the (hang on, checking logs......) 18 minutes my FileMaker Pro server was down last year, that nobody even tried to use it.

      I bought a keychain mass storage memory thingy the other month. I chose a "256MB Lexar Media Jump Drive 2.0" for the brand and model. Why? Because I _know_ it will work. I plugged this thing into my USB 1.1 port (G4, mirrored drive doors running MacOS X 10.2.x). Guess what happened? A drive icon popped up on the desktop called "LEXAR MEDIA" or some such. I didn't have to do _anything_ except plug the thing in. So that night I came home, plugged it into my Dell Dimension XPSB866, running Windoze 2000, had to click "OK" a few times and it did the same thing, just popped up on my screen. Now this is quality. ((On another note, MacOS X didn't ask _anything_ when seeing this device, windows did. Makes me think.)) It's USB 2.0 (good for my PC anyways, the Mac doesn't seem to understand what USB 2.0 is, at least not a NEC USB 2.0 card on MacOS X 10.2.3ish.) Lexar Media is a good brand. (Lexar Media is the _only_ company that Sony has allowed to make Memory Sticks.) Of course other brands were cheaper, but I don't know for sure if they will work. I also don't know for sure that they will be supported in future versions of MacOS or Windows. I am pretty damned sure Lexar Media will be around for some time to come. I don't know this about some other companies, and I sure as hell don't have time to check every company I see a matching product for. I know this wasn't a huge purchase, but I think it's a good example.

      Before I go. I wish to say something. I believe MacOS X is the best OS I have used. I have used many many OSes. Windoze 95-XP, MacOS 6-9, all sorts of *NIX command lines (which I do love still, nothing like a 80 column 25 line black terminal) and of course X11. MacOS X 10.2.x (not so much the earlier versions) is a whole lot more advanced than all of these. Things just work. I don't want to mess around configuring stuff all over the place. I plug something in, it works.

      OK, I'm done ranting. Send one back eh? I love arguing.
      (wow, I just previewed. Longest comment I've ever sent, but a LONGSHOT. :)

      Blah blah blah. I'm _finally_ done now.

      --
      Nate Hart - nhart at NbOoSnPeAzM dot net
      (ditch the caps)
      http://bonez.net/

    11. Re:I wonder by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 1

      Boy, did you ever miss the point. Go back and read again. I said that nobody buys a big-ticket item like this on brand name alone.

      --

      I write in my journal
    12. Re:I wonder by Ydna · · Score: 1

      Wow. You're either really bored or a ranting, lunatic motormouth. Or both. ;)

      --

      "The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me

    13. Re:I wonder by bonez_net11 · · Score: 1

      Gee, lets see. Yes they do. I would. Apple 2.5TB RAID or no-name (or even name-brand) 2.5TB RAID. I'd go with the Apple simply because it matches my computer brand, and I know it'll work. This is all in the "brand name alone".

    14. Re:I wonder by LazLong · · Score: 1

      Especially since I've been buying IDE-FC RAID boxes for two years w/o paying the Apple Tax(tm).

      But I will admit, their price isn't bad. I don't care for their lack of support for other OS's. But that would be too much to ask, now wouldn't it?

  2. Old News by elliotj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hey guys, MacSlash called, they want their story from February 10th back.

    The xServe RAID box has been out for a month. Why is this "news"?

    1. Re:Old News by Drunken_Jackass · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's not a duplicate - it's a RAID 1 mirror of the previous story.

      --
      There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
    2. Re:Old News by ahknight · · Score: 1

      Not only old news, but a dup as well. Wake up, Hemos.

  3. XServe RAID is old news. by Martin+Kallisti · · Score: 0

    The XServe RAID came out at the same time as the latest XServe on the Apple web page (about a month ago) and has been available to order for as long. Really now. It's a nice product, but it's certainly not news.

  4. Not news by Nexum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nope, this is *not* news, the XRaid is over a month old now.

    I think Apple are approaching this carefully, there aren't a huge number of orders, and they know that in the server area they have to be established and seen as a long term player to gain serious marketshare. So they're doing this humbly and slowly, making sure that they get things right.

    They are *not* betting the farm on the server solutions, they are great products and I think its good to see the company diversifying both above (XServe XRaid) and below (iPod) their usual established market area.

    -Nex

    --

    This sig has been deprecated.
  5. Apple does nothing "quietly", this was 1 month ago by BoomerSooner · · Score: 0

    Although I guess you'd have to be a Mac user to actually discern between the real Mac stories and the stories submitted by people not in tune with the releases.

  6. a bargain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    at $11k ?

    right. considering I still have to buy a system to hook it up to.

    there are other, cheaper vendors too. we purchased a system from qsol.com which was a very good price. for that $11k you drop on that xserver, you can buy 3.75TB of redundant space from qsol

    (i'm not affiliated with qsol except that i'm a very happy customer)

    1. Re:a bargain? by shylock0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you're looking for budget NAS, then you're right -- but the XServe isn't budget NAS. It's designed to compete with solutions from Sun, Dell, and IBM. And compete it does -- a client of mine managed to get two prepro models from Apple (they were basically testing them, then got to keep them). Set up as RAID 5, they are effectively as fast as a the Sun fibre channel array they are going to replace, but cost about a third as much per gig. Amazing hardware. I highly reccommend.

      --
      Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
  7. yes its a bargain! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
    No you cannot buy an equivalent system for less.

    does your equivalent system hav dual, redundant power supplies, dual controllers? dual ethernet? dual fiber channel? independent masters on all the disks? fit in 3-U, have hot swap? Web browser based administration? have a 3 year 4 hour response time warntee? have an available replacemt kit for all the parts? have legendary apple quality?

    then there is the cost of installation and maintainence. does your system come out of the box, plug it in and spend less than ten minutes to configure it to run samba, nfs, appleshare, apache, LDAP, DNS, Netboot server, mailserver over a dual ethernet gigbit interface? with an unlimited client lic?

    I'll answer for you. NO.

    1. Re:yes its a bargain! by goombah99 · · Score: 1
      those disks are ide. what's the point in hooking them up to a fcal? it's not like that's going to make them faster.

      wrong. read the specs. these IDE drives have higher rates than most scsi drives.

      wow. i'm going to tell my boss we can let go of 10-12 of the jr SAs 'cause we can get a 2.52TB fileserver running in 10mins. and it will be completely tuned and customized for our needs?

      well no of course not. But you might be able to let one of them go and that would pay for the system. That's the point.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    2. Re:yes its a bargain! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sheesh. read the damn specs or take my word for it. they have been tested and are faster. the basic secret is simply this: the inerfaces have more to do with drive speeds than drives do. apple built a supeior interface.

  8. Late March by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    They were announced earlier, and have been on the apple site for weeks now - we ordered one (along with a couple of XServes), and as of last friday the word from apple was delivery "late march". (This is presumably not a shipping delay, but rather when the first actual units are expected to be delivered...)

    -- Tom too-lazy-to-login

  9. Full original Feb 10 story, and discussion, here: by daveschroeder · · Score: 0, Redundant

    http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/10/ 1414229

  10. I follow it all carefully and I didn't even notice by Currawong · · Score: 1
    ...until now! It's the first time it's appeared on their main site page, however.

    Anyway, aren't you going to debate over ATA100 vs. SCSI or something? ;)

    --

    What is the point of the internet?
  11. Before the trolls get started... by Llywelyn · · Score: 4, Informative

    With the "that's so expensive! You can get more storage than that for $11k and more an actual computer to boot!"

    This is not an offering from Apple that is designed to compete for storage in the home, except maybe for those individuals running a small business. This is not just a "bunch of storage," this is a high-quality server solution that is designed to compete with Sun and IBM.

    This thing has a battery backup module for the cache, dual and *independant* RAID controllers, redundent *cooling* (incidentally, these are self regulating as well), and redundent power supplies. It also all fits inside of a 3U case, which is phenomenal, and hot-swapable drives.

    --
    Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
  12. No, it appeared on Feb 10 by daveschroeder · · Score: 1

    And it was prominently displayed alternating between both the large, main feature, and one of the 3 smaller features. This was huge a month ago; every Mac site (and slashdot) carried it.

  13. Good Fiber Channel pricing by TexTex · · Score: 2, Informative

    One thing that is rather cool to see is Apple's pricing of their fiber channel card.

    500 bucks...

    If indeed this is a standard fiber channel pipe, that's a bargain. Most of the SANs I've seen run around $2000 for such a card, and it makes adding fiber worthwhile on a desktop G4 even if you need the bandwidth.

    --
    -Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
  14. REASON IT IS NEWS--SEE BELOW by tyrione · · Score: 1

    Slashdot.org has a much larger and broader audience, than Macslash, so with that in mind having this re-run article gives more PR for Apple's X-RAID Product, yes?

  15. No SCSI??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most interesting being that we all knew that Apple went to ATA for everything about 3 presidents ago... Didn't you get the memo?

    1. Re:No SCSI??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not nearly as interesting as this

  16. Not news? Sure it is. by bonez_net11 · · Score: 1

    If you don't read macslash and you do read apple.slashdot, then this is news. I of course load www.apple.com and store.apple.com 2 or 3 times a week, so its not news to me. Don't assume everyone reads the same websites that you do, because they don't. I emailed the link to this /. article to someone at work yesterday, and it was news to them. Before you bash people, think about it.
    (Don't flag me as FLAMEBAIT please! :)
    --
    Nate Hart -
    (you figure it out)
    http://bonez.net/

  17. This was ALREADY posted on apple.slashdot.org... by daveschroeder · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ...AND in this very thread!!! http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=56543&ci d=5477731

  18. Already run on slashdot on Feb 10 by daveschroeder · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I realize dupes are nothing new on slashdot, but: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/10/ 1414229 This was ALREADY RUN on this very site, in this very section, on Feb 10, the day of Xserve RAID's introduction. This fact is also mentioned several times in the comments of *this* article.

  19. Re:Not news? Sure it is. by Ydna · · Score: 1
    Before you bash people, think about it.

    Is it okay to tcsh people before you think about it?

    --

    "The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me

  20. ATA ? by eadint · · Score: 0

    One thing that i couldn't find when i was looking for information on this thing was.
    what is the sustained io.
    as far as i know ata peeks at 100 but is about 30 sustained.
    at any tb rating this is unacceptably slow.
    does anybody know what the sustained throughput of this is.

    1. Re:ATA ? by Dragonfly · · Score: 1
      From Apple's datasheet:

      "Each 180GB Apple Drive Module uses a dedicated drive change, maximizing the 400MB/s Fibre Channel host connection."

      Yes, that's right, each drive gets its own independent ATA channel to itself, which allows Apple to acheive redundancy, speed, and a low overall price.
    2. Re:ATA ? by eadint · · Score: 0

      i got that. but what's the sustained transfer rate. uuw scsi sustained 80 mb/s i don't think that ata can do that

    3. Re:ATA ? by bonez_net11 · · Score: 1

      Go back and read the comment again. It says that it maxes out the fibre channel connectivity. What more do you want? If it was ultra160 SCSI, it wouldn't matter, it would be limited by the speed of the fibre channel connection.
      --
      Nate
      n h a r t @ n e t . b o n e z
      (reverse net & bonez)
      http://bonez.net/