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Apple xServe servers. Maintenance, upgrades and hardware/software issues and hacks.
Total messages: 2
Apple Firmware Hard Drives - use with Xserve G5 Hardware RAID PCI card
posted by: Nick on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 6:41 PM
So, we’ve recently purchased a Xserve G5 so that we can upgrade the hardware that our mail server runs on from a Dual G4 Xserve.
The machine purchased came with a single 80GB SATA Drive Module, so I purchased two more ADMs from a supplier along with 3 of the Seagate ES (Enterprise Series) SATA drives at 320GB in size.
We also had been planning on upgrading a customers Xserve G5 that has a Hardware RAID PCI card and 3 x 80GB drives to 3 x 400 as they will be using this as a media server in their application.
We had quite a bit of trouble getting the LSI/Megaraid card to work reliably with these three drives.
I had done some research into the issue by searching my archives of the Apple OS X Server Mailing List, and found some statements that non-Apple firmware drives do not work with that RAID card. After some empirical testing we have confirmed this to a 100% certainty. So, if you are looking to upgrade drives in your Xserve G5 RAID set, you will need to find and install drives with Apple firmware. One possible source is that the Xserve RAID does NOT have this restriction and that you might be able to swap out drives that are in that device that have Apple Firmware and use them in the Xserve G5. Of course you’ve now created an “unsupported configuration” with your Xserve RAID and that’s a choice you can make.
The main symptoms we’ve been seeing is that the megaraid card doesn’t register itself with the system soon enough from a cold boot. And when it does, it does not (using the -showdevices command) show any of the drives attached to it. Warm booting after that sometimes will get the card and drives to show up, but after creating a RAID set and shutting down/rebooting, you have the same problems and the card starts sounding it’s alarm. Basically, totally unreliable as a subsystem. We’ve tried different cards, different Xserve G5s, different cables, different drives. Only one combination worked just as you would expect it to: Apple firmware Xserve drives.
The machine purchased came with a single 80GB SATA Drive Module, so I purchased two more ADMs from a supplier along with 3 of the Seagate ES (Enterprise Series) SATA drives at 320GB in size.
We also had been planning on upgrading a customers Xserve G5 that has a Hardware RAID PCI card and 3 x 80GB drives to 3 x 400 as they will be using this as a media server in their application.
We had quite a bit of trouble getting the LSI/Megaraid card to work reliably with these three drives.
I had done some research into the issue by searching my archives of the Apple OS X Server Mailing List, and found some statements that non-Apple firmware drives do not work with that RAID card. After some empirical testing we have confirmed this to a 100% certainty. So, if you are looking to upgrade drives in your Xserve G5 RAID set, you will need to find and install drives with Apple firmware. One possible source is that the Xserve RAID does NOT have this restriction and that you might be able to swap out drives that are in that device that have Apple Firmware and use them in the Xserve G5. Of course you’ve now created an “unsupported configuration” with your Xserve RAID and that’s a choice you can make.
The main symptoms we’ve been seeing is that the megaraid card doesn’t register itself with the system soon enough from a cold boot. And when it does, it does not (using the -showdevices command) show any of the drives attached to it. Warm booting after that sometimes will get the card and drives to show up, but after creating a RAID set and shutting down/rebooting, you have the same problems and the card starts sounding it’s alarm. Basically, totally unreliable as a subsystem. We’ve tried different cards, different Xserve G5s, different cables, different drives. Only one combination worked just as you would expect it to: Apple firmware Xserve drives.
Installing RAID card in Xserve G5
posted by: Macuser on Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 11:00 PM
Bought a G5 Xserve and a RAID card off eBay. RAID card came without SATA cables (which was stated on the auction page).
Without knowing it I bought a regular SATA cables w right angle on one side and straight on the other.
It turned-out that right angle regular SATA cable won't fit in a Xserve case. So I had to look further on the internet for low profile cables with soft wires (regular colored wires are too stiff and won't bend properly).
Apple original cables are $62 + S/H and they're direct fit. Aftermarket cables roughly $30 delivered. My choice is Apple original.
Thought I'd share the thoughts.
Without knowing it I bought a regular SATA cables w right angle on one side and straight on the other.
It turned-out that right angle regular SATA cable won't fit in a Xserve case. So I had to look further on the internet for low profile cables with soft wires (regular colored wires are too stiff and won't bend properly).
Apple original cables are $62 + S/H and they're direct fit. Aftermarket cables roughly $30 delivered. My choice is Apple original.
Thought I'd share the thoughts.