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The Problems with XServe Raid

Shrek

Shrek

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 23, 2002
1,118
0
Nashville, Tennessee USA

  1. [*]It's too expensive. $4/GB. C'mon! I could get a 120GB hard drive w/8MB of cache for $185 or 3 XServes (XServe Raid is 3U) fully loaded with 4 180GB hard drives each (2.16TB) for a total of $13,647, but were only talking about a storage solution here, not a full blown server.

    [*]Not Enough GB. Certainly they can put way more GB into a 3U RAID Server, way more than you can put in 3 XServes.

They should solve this by lowering the price per GB and putting many more GB into the machine.

I sure hope someone at Apple reads this! :mad:
 
Re: The Problems with XServe Raid

Originally posted by Shrek

  1. [*]It's too expensive. $4/GB. C'mon! I could get a 120GB hard drive w/8MB of cache for $185 ...

    [*]Not Enough GB. Certainly they can put way more GB into a 3U RAID Server, way more than you can put in 3 XServes.
Click to expand...
To reply to your points and your rant...

There is a physical limit to how many drives fit in a 3U box if you want hot swap type servicability. Add too many and you have to take the storage unit down to service. Also is you didn't notice the Xserave RAID supports 14 disks, 3 Xserves only support 12 disks. So it is more if not way more.

As to the price. A disk for $185 has no hot swap carrier. Nor does it have a disk controller. Come to think of it, it also isn't in a case of any type. These come at a cost. Also, the hardware raid controller costs moneys as does the cache on the raid controllers.

If you want a lot of storage in a single case, go look for a firewire drive cabinet. You can get one for under $1500 depending on how many disks you want to be able to add to it. However, you don't have the hardware RAID and the data protection it provides. Also, you're now on a single firewire interface instead of having dual fibre channel.

Hardware RAID is not for normal home use. It's a unit for serious [business] use.
 
Actually, Xserve RAID is very competitively priced.

Forget the costs of IDE disks, and price it against some other RAID hardware.
 
Re: The Problems with XServe Raid

Originally posted by Shrek

  1. [*]It's too expensive. $4/GB. C'mon! I could get a 120GB hard drive w/8MB of cache for $185 or 3 XServes (XServe Raid is 3U) fully loaded with 4 180GB hard drives each (2.16TB) for a total of $13,647, but were only talking about a storage solution here, not a full blown server.

    [*]Not Enough GB. Certainly they can put way more GB into a 3U RAID Server, way more than you can put in 3 XServes.

They should solve this by lowering the price per GB and putting many more GB into the machine.

I sure hope someone at Apple reads this! :mad:
Click to expand...

You DO realize the XRaid is considered to be VERY competitively priced, right?
 
Shrek:

The Xserve Raid is very compeditive. I showed my coworker who is quite anti-Apple, and lets just say these are gona be the next raids purchased around here.

It's not just a pile of disks. It is a hot-swap-happy, very reliable, fiber-channel disk of doom.
 
Re: The Problems with XServe Raid

Originally posted by Shrek
It's too expensive. $4/GB. C'mon! I could get a 120GB hard drive w/8MB of cache for $185 or 3 XServes (XServe Raid is 3U) fully loaded with 4 180GB hard drives each (2.16TB) for a total of $13,647, but were only talking about a storage solution here, not a full blown server.
Click to expand...

You have actually read up on this right? So you must have seen how publications like eWeek and such have said how competitively priced and excellently configured the XRAID is. I have been RAID shopping myself, and to get the features of an XRAID at 720GB, I would have to spend at least 30% more than the cost of the XRAID. If I dumb down the quality and feature set, I can get around the same price.

Not Enough GB. Certainly they can put way more GB into a 3U RAID Server, way more than you can put in 3 XServes.
Click to expand...

You do realize that the full-deck XRAID has the equivilent full-storage maximum of 42 average desktops? [Average being 60 GB] How the hell is that not enough room for you? Oh, too much pron on your HD? :eek:

They should solve this by lowering the price per GB and putting many more GB into the machine.

I sure hope someone at Apple reads this! :mad:
Click to expand...

Yes, you are mad! :rolleyes:
 
RAID != IDE

Dear Shrek:

As other have noted, RAID != IDE.

RAID is liking buying a special purpose computer with your hard drives. RAID systems are for industrial strength data storage, for speed, reliability, or both.

From what I read, a comparable RAID system to Apple's would cost $12k+ in a configuration similar (but with a fraction of the storage) to a $10k Apple RAID.

The Apple RAID is innovative (using IDE), offers greater storage in a smaller space (using much higher capacity drives than conventional RAID systems), and comes in at a lower price for a first generation product. All of these features point to a highly pragmatic, high-end solution at an excellent price.

If it works, it'll be the bomb.
 
Re: RAID != IDE

Originally posted by occam
If it works, it'll be the bomb.
Click to expand...

LOL.

That should be Apple's XRaid ad slogan.

Introducing XServe Raid.
If it works, it'll be the bomb.
 
Re: RAID != IDE

Originally posted by occam
From what I read, a comparable RAID system to Apple's would cost $12k+ in a configuration similar (but with a fraction of the storage) to a $10k Apple RAID.
Click to expand...

I've worked with SCSI RAID solutions where just the cabinet cost $12K, before you added any disks at all. This was several years ago, mind you.
 
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