XserveRaid
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Xserve Fibre Channel card now has 4Gb
Sorry about the original headline, folks: editing error on my part. Apple quietly added two more high-speed Fibre Channel cards to the product lineup last week: dual and quad-port 4Gb cards are now orderable from the Apple Store with ship dates 7-10 days out (dual-channel card) or 4-6 weeks out (quad-channel card). These cards are PCI Express and compatible only with the Mac Pro or the Intel-based XServe.For those feeling the need for speed, keep in mind that the XServe RAID still tops out with the built-in dual 2Gb FC ports. To get the benefit of the 4Gb channels on the new cards, you'd have to connect to a 4Gb fiber switch with aggregated bandwidth from several RAIDs (typical of an Xsan deployment).[via Macenterprise/alienRAID]
Apple bumps its Xserve RAID to 10.5TB, SATA where art thou?
Being the torrent junkies we are -- you know, those GPL'd Linux ISOs, somebody's gotta download 'em -- we were kind of stoked about that rumored SATA-based Xserve RAID we spied last week and the supa-cheep storage it would provide. Unfortunately, it looks like Apple is going to stick with Ultra ATA for the moment, though at least you can squeeze a bit more storage out of the unit now: Apple is including support for 750GB drives, allowing for a whoppin' 10.5TB of storage for under $1.31 per gigabyte. That's great and all Apple, and those dual or quad-channel 2Gb fibre-channel PCI cards are swell too, but when are we going to see the real deal with six built-in fibre-channels and that SATA sweetness?[Via TUAW]
Xserve RAID Admin Tools 1.5.1
When it rains it pours as the Morton Salt company says, which really has nothing to do with this post. First Apple updates the Xserve RAID and then they update the Xserve RAID Admin Tools 1.5.1. I smell conspiracy. No, wait, that's just the salt again.This update brings support for the larger disks in the slightly revamped Xserve RAID, as well as a number of other fixes that are listed in the support doc.Thanks, Chris.
Apple updates Xserve RAID, now up to 10.5TB
Attention Apple enterprise geeks: Apple has just updated the Xserve RAID. The Xserve RAID, in case you are not aware, is Apple's very competitively priced storage solution. The Xserve RAID can now be configured to sport 14 750 GB drives, which translates to a whopping 10.5TB (that's a lot of iTunes tracks), up from 7TB.Also of note, the two top tier pre-configured versions have dropped in price ($300, and $600 cheaper respectively). The 500 GB drive modules have also been priced down from $649 to $599.Go forth and get your storage on, as the kids say (the kids say that, right?).Thanks, Jonathan.
Coldest XServe RAID on the planet
Server rooms are generally chilly places, with high-powered air conditioning systems running at top speed to keep the big iron from melting. The installation team from the University of Wisconsin - Madison is not likely to have an AC problem with its latest Xserve RAID installs; the boxes are configured as part of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory being built at 90º South, otherwise known as the South Pole. The "extreme astronomy" project -- using cubic miles of the Antarctic icecap as a handy, preconfigured pure water reservoir where possible neutrino collisions can be spotted and analyzed, with the entire mass of the Earth filtering out cosmic rays and other particles -- is going to be generating huge amounts of data when it comes completely online. One RAID will be used for scratch storage of that research data; the other will be used for backup. Apple has made a strong push for Xserve and Xserve RAID in the research community, focusing on genomics and biochemistry among other disciplines. It's interesting to see astronomy projects purchasing Apple storage gear to add to the arsenal. [via AlienRAID]
SATA-based Xserve RAID coming
Ruh roh, Stevie J isn't gonna like this. Looks like AppleInsider landed some rare and much coveted pre-release Apple product pics; no, it's not of the iPhone sans phone or ultraportable MacBook Pro, it's of the long overdue Xserve upgrade to the Xserve RAID, which finally puts cheap and plentiful enterprise SATA drives in the enterprise enclosure. Other improvements AI claims Apple have made to the above "Q57" prototype include an additional four fibre-channel ports, although the fibre-channel controller has apparently yet to be made redundant. We're sure there are more than a few enterprise Mac users hoping they won't have to wait until WWDC 2007 to check this thing out, but we don't have any timeline for release, so we'll all be keeping an eye out for release.
Rack your Xserve RAID with Ikea furniture
I just spent a good chunk of my morning wrestling with rack equipment, so I really apprecitate Fraser Speirs Ikea 'rack' for his Xserve RAID. He does point out that the Xserve RAID is loud, but not as loud as he thought it would be.I'm really tempted to try this myself, but sadly my budget is all Ikea and no Xserve.
