Going Deep Inside Xserve Apple Drive Modules

adamengst writes "If you've had an Xserve drive fail, you may have considered saving some money by putting a replacement drive inside its Apple Drive Module. That may be a false economy, though. TidBITS explains why, while pinning Apple down on exactly what goes into Apple Drive Modules and why they cost so much more than bare retail drives."

Comments

Re:Here we go again

[Joehonkie]

Yeah, this is real "pixie dust." A lot of it is speculative stuff that assumes that somehow NAS drives are magically different from normal HDDs. Also contains references to the "Bathtub Graph" which has been pretty much shown to be a load of bunk: http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38693

Ok, some good info.

[gandhi_2]

There are some parts to the article that make sense.

If your OS could benefit from custom firmware...for example if you file system writes in certain sized blocks. I can see that being a case for specialized hard drives. But does that really account for the cost? If the drive's firmware is flashable, let the customer flash it to perform better with their OS choice.

The rubber grommet thing? Now that's some excellent bullshit. You are really telling me that someone spins up the drive, records the vibrating frequency, then selects the appropriate rubber grommets from the bin, then assembles the harddrive caddy? The bullshit flag is on the field, 10 yard penalty - roughing the truth. Again, even if that DID happen, does that justify the increased cost? I doubt it.

In the end, you still run a sluggish GUI on a server. fail. I bet if you ran your website on a stripped down *nix server, on a $1000 machine, your ass wouldn't be slashdotted right now.

Re:Four comments in

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs does not use BIOS.

Grommets

[actionbastard]

"Apple also told me that the rubber grommets that hold the drive to the ADM carrier are chosen specifically to match each drive's vibrational characteristics."

"Yes, sir. In order to reduce vibration we use the finest of synthetic compounds to minimize noise so that your cold room droogies won't have to suffer a higher level of acoustic trauma."
Get real.
Every major manufacturer re-labels drives for inventory and warranty purposes. They also use custom firmware to identify the drives for the same reasons. Special grommets? If you have worked with ADMs you know those grommets are extremely thin, shred to bits if you try to reuse them -more likely you lose them taking the thing apart, and are there more to keep the screws from coming loose than anything else. I have replaced drives in ADM modules before with RE drives -because the drives were mirrored- and haven't had a problem. If you are going to replace the drive in a server -a piece of mission-critical equipment- with the cheapest bulk OEM drive you can find, you will have problems.

name brand stuff has better support

[alen]

HP and EMC does the same thing. HP will charge you $500 for a 1TB SATA today and we just paid EMC $800 or so per 500GB drive for a bunch of drives.

one nice benefit is the support. HP has a proactive failure warranty. if it flashes and alert that it thinks the drive will fail you call them and you have a new drive arrive by UPS the next day. EMC will come out within 4 hours to replace it.

and they are guaranteed to work with the brand name RAID controller that is the same brand as your server. you're paying for the testing and special drivers knowing that everything you buy will work together and you don't waste time calling support and playing musical telephone

Re:name brand stuff has better support

[raddan]

Yeah, but the kicker is, sometimes the support still sucks. E.g., we have (er, HAD; Apple pissed me off to the point that I literally have a stack of Xserves that can turn to dust for all I care) a bunch of Xserves and Xserve RAIDs that we used for various tasks, mostly Mac-related.

One day, the RAID Admin tool notifies me via email that I have a failing disk in an array. OK, no problem, call Apple. We're paying for support, you know.

The guy on the phone was friendly, and said the disk was on its way. The next morning, I have a package waiting for me when I get in. It's a drive module, yay! I go into the server room, yank the failed module (conveniently designated by a red light) and insert the new one. RAID Admin proceeds to tell me that there was an unexpected error. Huh? I try again. Same thing. No additional information, just "unexpected error".

I call Apple back, and explain the problem, they run me through some GUI diagnostics, and in the end, cannot solve the problem. I tell them to hold off on sending me another disk just yet.

After trawling the Apple forums, I find out, hey, I can get all of the diagnostics and logs from the CLI, too. They're way more verbose. Verdict: Apple sent me a disk of the wrong capacity-- the ones in my RAID are 74.5 GB and this one is 73.x or something. Of course, they're _supposed_ to know exactly what kind of disks I have; that's the whole point of the service. Anyway, it eventually gets sorted out, but after the RAID sat there, operating without a hot spare for about a week.

Now, if this were the end of it, I would be forgiving of Apple. But I've had other problems. We had a CD reader fail in an Xserve. The Apple on-site person came out for this one. When he left (without checking in with me, of course), it still DID NOT WORK. This is despite the fact that I set him up with a workbench, full complement of tools, power, keyboard, and monitor to test with. The problem? He never bothered to plug the new CD drive into the machine. This is shoddy service. MINIMALLY, you test the part you just replaced, right?

But the icing on the cake was when a controller module in our Xserve RAID failed. I call Apple and they overnight a part. When I open the box, I have... a CD-ROM drive? I call Apple and say, hey, you sent me the wrong part. The support guy went so far as to call me a liar on the phone. He said that such a mix up was "impossible". He was convinced that I was going to return the box with a CD-ROM drive in it, and keep the shiny new controller that they sent me. It wasn't until I faxed them photocopies of the accompanying paperwork that they would believe me that it was their error, and even then, they CHARGED me for a SECOND part! It took our A/P department about a month to sort that out.

So fuck you very much Apple. Fucking rot in hell.

(And yes, I typed this message on an iMac. I like punishment; what can I say?)

Re:Article text

[Logic Bomb]

Actually, it's incredibly informative for people who run Apple systems but never get hard information from Apple about these drive modules. Since Apple started selling rack-mount servers, they insisted that only Apple-supplied drive modules could be used. Server admins have always wanted to know exactly why. Is it mostly because Apple's trying to make money, or are there a good technical reasons why one must pay 4x the consumer-market rate for disks?

AFAIK, this is the first time anyone has managed to pry this level of detail out of Apple on the subject.

Re:Behind the power curve?

[BitZtream]

And what would that be? Cases that don't require screw drivers to open? I'm seriously asking cause you've been able to replace drives on Macs as long as I've used them.

Most Dells and the like come on rails that let you slide them in and out, but you still generally have to open the case and disconnect the wires on desktop models. Do you eve know what he's talking about on the Mac Pro? How many PCs do YOU have that have drive bays in them as if they were a RAID controller where you just pop the drive out and it auto disconnects power and cable? I've yet to see one outside of the server room.

You claim you had this on your PC in 1989? Sounds more like you hadn't seen a PC in 1989, not then, or ever since whats being referred to here was most certainly considered high end back in the early 90s, and even earlier in this decade.

I've been able to replace drives on Macs for years. Low end models have more constraints on what you can put in them, but the 'professional' quality macs aren't really different than a 'PC', especially not now, but even for the last 20 years. They've got expansion slots. They've ALWAYS supported more drives than a typical desktop PC, remember they used SCSI to start with, 7 to 14 drives in a machine by default, not 2 (or 4 as soon as dual controllers became standard on PCs) as with IDE or 1 for some other technologies back in the day. Want an external disk? Every mac has a method for doing it. It wasn't till the last 10 years that we started having a method to just plugin drives come standard on PCs. And let me give you a hint, USB is a absolutely shitty method of transfering bulk data. SCSI, Firewire, and now SAS or SATA are all valid. How many PCs do you have that have any of those available externally? Mine has firewire, but up until just the last few years you had to by an addon card to get that. You're just ignorant if you think Macs are 'behind' PCs.

On low end 'grandmother' models it just requires more effort, but its certainly no worse doing it on an iMac than it is on something like the Gateway Profile units or the like which were basically the same thing as an iMac in Dell Black and Square instead of Apple White and Round. You're comparing a Pontiac and Cadillac and pretending they are different in some massive way. They aren't. Your Pontiac really isn't any different than the Mac users Cadillac as far as overall design. Its just the details and quality of components in the design that are different. They still work the same way and can share many many parts.

I remember installing a new drive into a Macintosh LE (I think, maybe it was something else) in highschool to go along with the external 1 gig drive we got. The only thing 'special' we needed was the case spreader, but you could use a flathead for that if you didn't mind nicking the case a little, the spreaders aren't mac specific so finding them wasn't hard. That was in 96. So thats only 13 years ago, but it wasn't exactly 'new' then either.

You're just another typical anti-mac fanboy. You don't know WHY you don't like Macs, you just hate them because ... I don't know why either. Stop spreading crap you heard from some other anti-mac zealot and get a clue on your own next time.

Mac users just don't need to upgrade so it doesn't happen often. They just want to use their PC, not fuck with it all the time like most slashdotters. One of the things most people here rarely get is that the rest of the world just wants to USE their computer, not spend 15 hours a day fucking with the innards or the OS just so they can play Minesweeper or view the photos of the grandkids at Disney World.

As for price, well, again, stop being a cluebie. Pretty much every discussion about Mac has this same crap. Someone spouts 'so expensive!' and someone else spouts back 'compared to what?' and shows a nearly identically priced compariable system from some one else. If you don't understand why Macs are generally 'more' expensive, then you probably also don't unde

Re:Here we go again

[Intron]

I don't have to. Intel already has:

http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/enterprise_class_versus_desktop_class_hard_drives_.pdf

Check the HD model

[OneArmedMan]

In this image : http://db.tidbits.com/tbthumbs/tn10166_System-Profiler-SAS-report.jpg

the drive model is listed as : st380815as n

2 seconds of googling shows this page : http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=809a4d4b57cb0110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD

Uh... that doesn't look like a server / enterprise class disk to me. It looks like a normal old Seagate disk that Apple want to charge lots for cause it has an Apple sticker on it.