Apple unveils Xsan 2, retires XServe RAID
By Opal Tribble
Apple quietly discontinued their XServe Raid boxes and replaced them with third party RAID storage hardware, Promise VTrac E-Class RAID subsystems from Promise Technology. The original Xsan was released in January 2005 and has done an excellent job of powering several high powered SANs. The Xsan has received a major upgrade. Enter the Xsan 2. Xsan 2 is a major transformation of its storage area network (SAN) file system.
“For the first time, Xsan 2 has been qualified with third-party RAID storage hardware. Along with Apple’s Xserve® RAID, Xsan 2 supports third-party RAID solutions from Promise Technology in configurations tuned and optimized for Xsan, Mac OS X Server and Apple’s professional applications.”
“Xsan is a 64-bit cluster file system specifically designed for small and large computing environments that demand the highest level of data availability. This specialized technology enables multiple Mac desktop and Xserve systems to share RAID storage volumes over a high-speed Fibre Channel network.”
The Xsan 2 has tantalizing features. The new administrative tools show some similarity to the Leopard Server tools. The administrative tools have been simplified which will help ease the burden of setup and management. It integrates seamlessly with the Open Directory for setting access control to volume and files. Thanks to tighter Leopard integration, Xsan 2 supports Spotlight searching of clustered filesystems. The MultiSAN feature allows simultaneous access to multiple volumes that are hosted by separate controllers, when using FiberChannel you can allow file copies from one SAN volume to another for a significant speed boost.
XSan 2 can be purchased immediately through the Apple Store or you can purchase it through an Apple Authorized Reseller. The suggested retail price is $999 per node.
System requirements
Mac OS X v10.5 or Mac OS X Server v10.5 or later, Intel or PowerPC G5 processor, at least 2GB of RAM and an additional 2GB for each hosted volume and Apple Fibre Channel card. For maximum performance, a dedicated Ethernet interface is recommended for file system metadata communications.
Storage and networking requirements
Switched Ethernet LAN, qualified RAID storage system, and qualified Fibre Channel switch. For maximum performance, a dedicated Ethernet interface is recommended for file system metadata communications.
Qualified RAID storage
Xserve RAID, Promise VTrak E-Class RAID Subsystem
Qualified Fibre Channel switches
Brocade Silkworm 200E, 4100, 4900; QLogic SANbox 2-64, 1400, 5200, 5600, 9100, and 9200 series; Cisco MDS 9000 family
Related:
Entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 8:27 am
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by Opal Tribble.
Stumble It!
February 26th, 2008
[...] to the Apple store. Last week we the prices were reduced on the iPod Shuffle and Apple also release Xsan 2, The week before the big announcement was Aperture 2, and the first week we saw double the memory [...]
April 15th, 2008
The company I work for has converted all of our storage are networks over to XSAN 2 and it has been a dream. I must admit that at first I was a little uneasy about the change, having been quite comfortable with the original XSAN, but XSAN 2 is so much easier to use and the interface is amazing.
July 31st, 2008
Ethernet connections are the best method for high performing systems. The new XSAN 2 sounds ideal for editing and sharing jumbo frames and other large data.