XServe RAID Basics

Rock Lobster · Dec 12th, 2007, 12:01 PM

hey all
I'm new to the XServe RAID... I've recently joined a new company where they've axed their IT guy, so we're all trying to figure the ins and outs of our own system and perhaps ways to improve it.
We have an XServe RAID fibre-channelled to a G4 as our storage server, plus a separate XServe G5 which is only attached thru Ethernet (it's a machine dedicated to a single crunching task... a RIP).
The RAID seems to have only six of the 14 drive slots occupied, all on the same side, configured in a single array. It is attached to the G4 by a single 2.9m copper fibre-channel cable.
My questions are (and bear with me as I figure out the basics):
a) Is there any benefit to attaching a second fibre-channel cable to the lower controller, or does each controller only serve one side each?
b) Are fibre-channel cables hot-swappable?
c) If each controller serves each side, would we be better served (pardon the pun) to split the six drives up, three per side? Would this improve access speed/efficiency?
d) Would we be better served (that one just never gets old, does it!) to host the RAID from the XServe G5? Would it negatively affect the performance of the RIP software and/or the storage server file access?
e) Does dual-hosting (hosting the RAID through both our G4 and XServe G5) mean splitting the RAID into two, with each host accessing different RAID segments?
I love to hear any and all opinions from you XServe users out there. Thanks in advance for the advice.
Rock

MacDaddy · Jan 24th, 2008, 03:35 PM

Hey Rock, Hopefully this helps a bit.

1. Are other machines connected to the G4 via Fibre as well? Or is it just the RAID to the G4? If its just the RAID, then you probably wont see any difference unless you are transfering VERY large amounts of (IE) HD Video between the G4 and the RAID.

My guess if everything goes Ethernet to the G4 anyway, so you will limited more by your network.

B) No/Yes. Its the same as Ethernet, you take it out, you drop the connection. If nobody is using it, you should be able to disconnect it with no issues. However, I do not have an XServe RAID, so I cannot be sure.

C) You setup the controllers yourself, so you can have one side on one cable, or both cables for the whole thing. It's all in your setup. If you are not sure about this, don't screw around as you will prob break something, hire somebody who knows the stuff.

D) not really. The speed comes from the FibreCard and the Fibre itself, not the Processors on the machine. If you have LOTS of users, then you would get better performace as the Server (G5 or G4) is most likely handling the requests, the authentication, the AFP/SMB, etc, etc, etc..

E) Not sure at all what you mean here.