Here
are the specs from Apple:
The
elegantly engineered companion to Apple’s highly regarded
Xserve line of server hardware, this cutting-edge, self-contained
storage solution holds up to 14 hot-swappable Apple Drive Modules
— a phenomenal 7TB of data — in a rack-optimized storage
enclosure.
Xserve RAID features a breakthrough Apple-designed architecture
that combines affordable, high-capacity Ultra ATA drive technology
with an industry standard 2Gb Fibre Channel interface for reliable
— and incredibly fast — data access. Xserve RAID is
hands-down the best value in external RAID storage. Xserve RAID
works well with Mac OS X Server, and you can use it with Windows-,
Linux- or NetWare-based servers as well.
High Yield, Low Cost
Do the math: the gigabyte-per-dollar ratio of Xserve RAID is the
best in the world for Fibre Channel storage, and trumps most SCSI
storage solutions as well. Xserve RAID offers up to 7TB of high-performance
redundant storage at under $2 per gigabyte — a fraction
of the cost of storage from Dell, HP, Sun or IBM. The days of
seemingly unlimited IT budgets are long gone — no more blank
checks for digital asset management — so as an IT professional,
you need to cut costs, without cutting corners. For that reason
alone, we think you’ll appreciate our pragmatic approach
to help you save huge amounts of data — as well as a nice
chunk of change.
Rack How Xserve RAID Works, In a Nutshell
Each 7200-rpm hard drive connects to a dedicated Ultra ATA drive
channel to eliminate bottlenecks and maximize the 400MB/s Fibre
Channel host connection. This in turn means that as you add drives,
Xserve RAID scales in both capacity and performance. And with
an industry-standard 42U rack holding 98 terabytes of storage,
you can keep adding drives for virtually unlimited storage.*
Failure Is Not an Option
Digital video footage, large databases, media-rich documents,
hi-res images, uncompressed audio and scientific data sets have
one thing in common: terabyte-sized storage needs. And while trying
to keep up with the demand for more and more storage space is
a job in itself, you can’t lose sight of the need to protect
your digital content against all contingencies — and still
make that combination available to users ’round the clock.
Apple Drive Modules Fast Access to your Digital Assets
Instead of following the ruinously expensive — and easily
avoidable — industry practice of relying on Fibre Channel
hard drives, Apple did something truly innovative: We designed
and developed a high-performance Ultra ATA-to-Fibre Channel systems
architecture that delivers superior performance and reliability
at a much lower cost.
Xserve RAID is designed for nonstop operation, with uninterrupted
access to your critical data. Redundant hot-swappable power supplies
and cooling modules enable the system to keep running even if
one module were to fail. All active components are modular and
designed to be switched in and out of place in seconds —
without tools, and without interruption of service.
You Control the Controllers
Each Xserve RAID controller uses an environment management coprocessor
to monitor and manage the RAID set and enclosure conditions. Naturally,
you control the controllers, instead of the other way around (this
is Apple technology, remember). The RAID Admin utility uses the
environment management coprocessor to build multiple RAID sets
on the fly, enabling you to bring storage online instantly —
with no waiting for initialization. And since the RAID Admin utility
is written entirely in Java, you can monitor and manage your RAID
storage from anywhere on the Internet.
Status lights Practice Management by Walking Around
Onsite management is even easier. Fact is, if you’re the
kind of IT professional who likes to keep tabs on what’s
going on in your domain by actually walking around and checking
things out for yourself, you’ll love the way Xserve RAID
provides continuous visual feedback on system status. Indicator
lights on the front panel display status at a glance for power
cooling, RAID controllers and enclosure lock, while LEDs on each
Apple Drive Module signal drive activity. With 46 blue LEDs down
the middle displaying activity levels for each host channel, and
Fibre Channel indicators showing link status, you can verify a
system’s health — what a concept — just by looking
at it.
Power Supply Data Storage That Rocks Around the Clock
Everything in Xserve RAID has been designed for nonstop operation.
With redundant and hot swappable components — like drives,
power supplies and cooling modules — Xserve RAID gives you
protection and availability ’round the clock. Xserve RAID
is prepared for every contingency.
Doesn’t Stop While You Swap
Xserve RAID drives feature true hot-swapping capabilities that
allow you to remove and replace a failed drive without losing
data or interrupting service, thanks to the hardware RAID controller
and the Apple-designed drive carrier. With Xserve RAID, the system
continues to operate while the contents of the failed drive are
rebuilt on a replacement drive, using redundant or parity information.
SMART Data
Xserve RAID hardware and remote management software work together
to provide industry-leading remote monitoring and alerting capabilities.
The RAID controller automatically reads Self-Monitoring, Analysis,
Reporting Technology (SMART) data from each hard drive. SMART
data lets you take preemptive measures. It allows the drive to
report its health, and enables the operating system to warn you
of a pre-failure condition — and gives you an opportunity
to replace the hard drive before a failure occurs. The goal? Uptime,
all the time.
