From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 2 10:41:54 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E89AC16A4B3 for ; Thu, 2 Oct 2003 10:41:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Shenton.org (23.ebbed1.client.atlantech.net [209.190.235.35]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 2D37043F3F for ; Thu, 2 Oct 2003 10:41:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from chris@Shenton.Org) Received: (qmail 80438 invoked by uid 1001); 2 Oct 2003 17:44:42 -0000 To: Christoph Sold References: <62587.148.243.211.1.1065086659.squirrel@mail.unixmexico.com> <3F7BF4B6.6030007@cheasy.de> From: Chris Shenton Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 13:44:42 -0400 In-Reply-To: <3F7BF4B6.6030007@cheasy.de> (Christoph Sold's message of "Thu, 02 Oct 2003 11:49:42 +0200") Message-ID: <86wubn1qlx.fsf@PECTOPAH.shenton.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1002 (Gnus v5.10.2) Emacs/21.3 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: nbari@unixmexico.com cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Xserve RAID on FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 17:41:55 -0000 Christoph Sold writes: > Basically, this unit is a Mac OS X Server providing storage over the > fibre using the usual suspects (NFS, SMB/CIFS(Samba), AFS). Don't know > if anybody tried this using fiber channel transport. I do not believe this is correct. I believe the Xserve RAID is a 3U box of HW-RAIDed IDE disks with redundant power supply and RAID controllers, with FibreChannel connections to a server. Price is outstanding, 2.5TB for about $11K. The Xserve is a sweet 1U OSX/UNIX box for which you can buy reasonably-priced FC adapters to connect it to the RAID. The RAID box has 2 FC interfaces so you could connect 2 Xserve boxes, or dual-connect a single Xserve, or connect it to a FC switch. The Xserver(s) can then export the FC-connected disk via NFS, CIFS, etc. I'd love to see a front end server acting like a NetApp. FreeBSD-5.x's snapshot feature gives you one of the nicest features of the NetApp. I'd love to hear if anyone's doing this.