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RIP xserve raid...

Feb 19, 08 - 10:44 am Comment from: TowerTone

So, it IS "I bury Paul"......
Coincidence?
Can I get a show of hands....OVER PAUL'S HEAD?!!!!

Xserve Raid seems to be listed on the AppleStore Suomi, 6-8 weeks delivery time for 1 TB version, 7 days for the rest.

Whatever that means as we don't get the iPod Shuffle 2 GB at all now.

????? apple ???????

Chills over my shoulders... I hope these storage products do well with my Xserve RAIDS I invested in two years ago. Because at a certain point I need to put more storage in my racks, and these seems to work, only with XSAN 2.0.
It's a shame, because I saw a big advantage for Apple in this product.

I hope this is not so. I set up perhaps the only Xserve/XRaid platform in our agency. My colleagues in the Research Section were among the few still partial to UNIX and Apple products, so I suggested this combo for cheap, reliable storage. We started with 1 Terrabyte in the first bay, then expanded to almost 3 TB.

Over the course of this project we experienced only one hardware problem in the Xserve (resolved the next day) and one software issue involving NFS sharing of very large partitions (resolved by a software update).

Xserve remains one of the true bargains in small Enterprise class servers. It'll be a shame if XRaid is no more.

Feb 19, 08 - 12:05 pm Comment from: Spark

Although this may be true, the evidence provided in the article above is not conclusive that the Xserve RAID is dead. A mistake in web code could produce the same results. Can we wait for an official confirmation from Apple before asserting speculation as fact?

Why?

The people deserve an answer...

Though XServe Raid looks much nicer thant the third party one, it could yet be a new move from Apple to deliver the same service with less costs involved.
If this thing works as well and Apple has not to build it for only a restricted number of customers, it's alright... XServes themselves are still a pure Apple product.

Feb 19, 08 - 12:53 pm Comment from: Vanillacide

http://www.apple.com/server/storage/ and Xsan 2 http://www.apple.com/xsan/

Xsan 2 is new today.

Feb 19, 08 - 01:26 pm Comment from: effwerd

I don't know if I can trust Xsan 2. Bucky made it pretty clear that the most stable arrangement of spheres is a tetrahedron not a cube.

i have 2 xraids and i was hoping for VMware to certify the xraid as a supported storage option for ESX. guess not now.

only thing left to hope for is for VMware to certify ESX to run on xserve, at least until Apple drops it and starts touting a partnered Dell server.

I, too, have an Xserve RAID - older, with all bays full. It great, never slows down, using cat6 ethernet. So can anyone tell, me - that $999 (love dem nines) if for the SAN server and the client is built into Leopard. So I would not have to buy additional clients. I am a Mac user, not an expert. So this sort of baffles me. Plus i love the ease of use of Xserve RAID.
A little advice from those who know?

So it may be too soon to write off XServe RAID... it has been an incredibly popular product for Apple and has opened a lot of doors for them in enterprise sales land... the XServe RAID has for example gotten Apple in the door at eBay, Oracle, Cisco and many other large corporations... And from there once they start using Apple for Storage they have been able to sell other Apple hardware into those same companies as a result.

Apple Enterprise Sales folks would be in serious trouble if this went away.

Rumors abound that there is a launch event rumored for next week... And today's announcement isn't that the product has been discontinued, just that there's a new XSan on the block.

It's possible that they have run out of XServe RAIDs and are holding off on the announcement until the launch event next week... meanwhile they needed something up on the site for the XSan 2 announcement.

Of course it's also possible it's gone never to return

Feb 19, 08 - 03:03 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

Bruce has an excellent point: the Xserve RAID has opened a lot of Enterprise doors for Apple. I've seen quite a few postings over the past several years - "went into the Apple Store just to check out the goods and walked out with an Apple RAID". "It's a bargain". Once you get your foot in the door, you either prove yourself and gain a lot of business or fall on your face ... and Apple doesn't do the latter very often.
It IS possible that Apple just does not want to serve large enterprises. SOHO, sure, but not the big guys. This would not be unheard of. Jobs has a will - and a won't - of iron. It is also possible they can make more profit outsourcing in this product category.
Dave

Feb 19, 08 - 03:21 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

The Promise unit offers two more drive enclosures than the Xserve RAID did. In the same 3u space. An extra TB, easy. If the quality is there ... ?

Feb 19, 08 - 04:15 pm Comment from: Jim - TIV

Just for fun I went to the apple web site, and spec'd out an xserve with every bell and whistle available. The price came to....

$91,639.95

Now THAT'S a server. I wonder if I could run my house with this?

Here is the page for the new Promise VTrak E-Class RAID Subsystem:

http://www.promise.com/apple/

It gets its own web page just for Apple customers.

(Note: Promise is not Apple. But Apple are promoting the Promise for their software).

Summary of sales point of the Promise VTrak E-Class RAID Subsystem:

- Apple Xsan 2 and Final Cut Studio 2 Qualified:
'The unique integrated VTrak E-Class products sold through the Apple online Store and through Apple Authorized Resellers have been tested by Apple to ensure the performance and reliability you expect from an Apple qualified product.'

- Active/active Controllers and I/O Modules

- 4Gb Fibre Channel SAN Performance and Reliability

- SAS and SATA Hard Drive Support

- VTrak Expansion Chassis

- Easy to Install and Manage
(Management software for Mac OS X)

- Warranty
Every VTrak E-Class RAID subsystem is backed by the Promise 3-Year limited warranty with 24/7 telephone and email support . When our support confirms a failure in the field, advanced replacement parts are always available to eliminate down time. For more information please visit https://support.promise.com.

Marketing schpeel: "Promise is proud to support Apple customers in their ongoing pursuit of excellence. The Mac platform has provided a solid foundation for cutting-edge creative expression for more than twenty years. Promise is proud to provide reliable high performance Apple-qualified VTrak E-Class RAID subsystems to satisfy the demanding requirements of Apple's data intensive Xsan and Final Cut Studio installations."

High end video users and enterprise folks, don't fret about this. Xserve RAID will be replaced with "Rainbow RAID", a colorful array of storage with a base configuration of 1TB striped across 500 2GB iPod Shuffles.

Need more space? Just pick your favorite color and add another Shuffle!

Feb 19, 08 - 06:25 pm Comment from: Ampar

"Now THAT'S a server. I wonder if I could run my house with this?"


Wouldn't you just about have to live in it?

$91,639.95

Now THAT'S a server. I wonder if I could run my house with this?

At THAT price, it oughta BE a house.

Feb 19, 08 - 06:41 pm Comment from: Rainer

X-Serve RAID:

- no RAID6
- no SAS
- NDMP?
- NAS?
- iSCSI?
- Snapshots?
- Snapclones?
- Replication?

So, in short, they killed it before it could embarrass them.
Hopefully, 10.6 Server will bring ZFS (and somebody certify or OEM that LSI SAS-HBA that e.g. SUN rebrands as their own) and with that, you just buy JBODs and let the fat XServe do all of the above and more. So much more in fact, that AAPL will play in the same league as NetApp. Just cheaper.

@pat
"High end video users and enterprise folks, don't fret about this. Xserve RAID will be replaced with "Rainbow RAID", a colorful array of storage with a base configuration of 1TB striped across 500 2GB iPod Shuffles. "

Now that would be cool. Maybe an iPhone cluster to go with it 

I predict Tuesday is ZFS-day. FTW!

Too bad Promise enclosures suck. Not only that, but those features come at a price - it's a tad more per gigabyte than an X-RAID too. I suppose if you're targeting the enterprise, features like snapshots, etc, are appealing. If you're just streaming HD video, I don't see how useful any of these "features" are.

MDN Magic Word: LESS, as in, pay more for less.

(I'm just eager for Apple to make people's heads swivel so they're psyched about the company again...)

Feb 19, 08 - 10:11 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

Rainer sez: "Hopefully, 10.6 Server will bring ZFS..."

Shogun sez: "I predict Tuesday is ZFS-day..."

Actually you can do some minor stuff with ZFS already in Leopard as of the very first release. It is accessible via the Terminal. But for ZFS to actually be useful, like to be able to put Mac OS X on it and boot from it, is going to take a lot more work, like maybe years. We shall see. ZFS has turned out to have MAJOR hype factor. It reminds me of Java.

Hey, didn't Sun Microsystems come up with Java as well? Hmm. Coincidence?

Anyway, I expect once ZFS becomes a seriously useful format Apple will rapidly provide an update. In the meantime you can go do a search for ZFS in the DEVELOPER area of Apple.com for details about its minimal capabilities in Leopard. (Sorry, I am too bizzy to look it up).

;-D

Xserve RAID was behind the times. Seriously, the maximum possible speed was 400MBps but hung around 250MBps and sometimes will drop randomly to under 100MBps with a fully populated array and less than 50% full. That is pathetic for the $12,000 price tag. I can get an 8 drive SAS array from Maxx Digital that runs around 570MBps for $6,000. Xserve RAID used old technology (ATA) and is overpriced for it's performance.

Good riddance by Apple. They hadn't put any R&D;into it for years. It really was abandoned a while ago so I don't see what the big deal is. It is okay for a company to discontinue a product.