Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with xserve

Help me come up with best Mac based server and backup solution for a small business.

jesseendahl — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:27:02 -0800

Help me come up with best Mac based server and backup solution for a small business. Hi,

I have been considering either an XServe or new Mac Pro to replace our aging XServe G4. Either way, I would like to have 8TB (4 x 2TB drives) on-site and 8TB off-site storage. Preferably this storage would be rack-mountable, hot swappable, and eSata. Also, hardware RAID is not really important to me and seems to add a lot of extra costs.

I am currently using SuperDuper for backup since it is a) very fast, and b) retains all permissions and ACLs, which is very important to me. I would like to continue using SuperDuper as my backup software.

The XServe's internal hard drives have to be Apple Drive Modules, which are limited to 1Tb each but have many benefits. See: http://db.tidbits.com/article/10166

Due to the space limitations of the internal XServe hard drives, I am considering using an external rack-mount solution for both the on-site drives as well as the off-site ones.

If I go with a Mac Pro, I would be able to use the internal drive bays for the 8TB of onsite storage, and then only need 4 bays of external rack-mountable hard drive bays.

What are my best bets: XServe with 8 bays external storage or Mac Pro with 4 bays external storage? For the external storage, is it standard practice to purchase "server grade" hard drives for backup purposes?

What brand of eSata card is best for this purpose?

What is the best rack-mountable hot-swappable eSata storage solution?

Last but not least, are there any alternatives to all of the above that I may be overlooking?

Thanks in advance!

How to chose an server for a small mac digital media lab?

yuletide — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:43:23 -0800

I'm trying to figure out my options for setting up a small digital media lab for a new non-profit, but I have no idea how to set a minimum level of server specs! How much CPU and RAM do I really need? What determines this? The server will be used to administer local user accounts, and store files (including large media files). We may also end up using it to host our website and mail, if it makes sense (unlikely). All the main client computers will be macs, so I assume I should make life easier and just get an XServe. But I'm open to other suggestions. See below for some prices and models for various XServe's I'm trying to choose between. How low can I go? How much CPU/RAM do I need? Let me know if you need more information... Best Used Xserve Prices

* 2.0 GHz single G5, $800 (no OS), $1,000 (10.3 unlimited or 10.4 10 user), MacResource
* 2.0 GHz dual G5, $1,000 (10.3 10 user), $1,100 (10.4 10 user), MacResource
* 2.3 GHz dual G5, $1,649 shipped (10.4 unlimited), Power Max

Best Refurbished Xserve Prices
* 2.66 Ghz 4-core Xeon, $2,399, Apple
* 2.8 GHz 4-core Xeon, $2,100, Small Dog
* 3.0 GHz 4-core Xeon, $2,799, Apple

Best New Xserve Prices
* 2.26 GHz 4-core Nehalem, $2,888 shipped, Power Max
* 2.26 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $3,449 + shipping, ExperCom
* 2.66 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $4,799 + shipping, ExperCom
* 2.93 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $5,999 + shipping, ExperCom

That Red Hat is awfully expensive!

Oktober — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:01:19 -0800

Is paying for a RHEL subscription worth it, or should we just go with CentOS? We're looking at moving our e-mail server to more-capable hardware, and would like to avoid paying $4k+ for a new Xserve, if at all possible. We're reasonably happy with our current package, Communigate, but it's severely hardware constrained now.

The only two applications that need to run on it are Communigate (which has ports for every OS under the sun) and Retrospect (our backup client, which has a Red Hat rpm).

Ideally, I'd get a cheap Quad-Core server from Dell, slap CentOS on it, installed our two applications, and call it a day. Still, I have nagging questions. Is paying for RHEL worth it? Can you continue updating your OS after your subscription expires? Is CentOS really 100% binary compatible with Red Hat?

What do you do when you don't want to buy more fancy Apple drives?

liquado — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:27:15 -0800

Older Apple Hardware Filter: My Google-fu has failed me. Anyone have some resources on/experience with replacing Apple-branded SATA drives in a G5 XServe with non-Apple-branded ones? I've found fragments of information about this scattered hither and yon, but here's the short story. I'm helping a school with a failed drive in one of their Apple Drive Modules (2x250GB). I had assumed the G5 was like the G4 -- you could use non-Apple drives. However, I've seen some people have limited success (in the few posts I can find) doing so in the G5s, and maybe some drives are compatible but others aren't, and.....argh.

I'd suggest they just buy new Apple Drive Modules, but they're stupidly expensive -- education, trying to keep costs down, etc.

So, does anyone have experience with this? Suggestions? Recommendations? I'm looking specifically for those with some hands-on experience with the G5 model, as the Xeon/Intel units are significantly different, it appears.

Mac connected to server gets strange filenames, sometimes.

Wild_Eep — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:03:22 -0800

A mac on a network connects to a share point on the server and sees this instead of seeing this. Restarting the client makes the problem go away, for a while.

Server is a DualG5 Xserve. Client is a G5. Both are running fully patched 10.4 server and 10.4, respectively.

What's going on?

I need advice on mounting an Xserve

SECONDHANDSMOTE — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:38:16 -0800

Can anyone think of a reason that would prevent me from mounting an older g4 xserve flush against a wall? I recently acquired an older Xserve (g4 1.33ghz, Gigabit ethernet, 2tb hd and fw 800 for add on storage) that I want to put to use as a time machine backup station, media server and perhaps seedbox. The problem is, I don't have the space to set up a rack for it in my apartment. What I would really like to do is mount the xserve flush against a wall (with spacers perhaps to aid airflow) and then doing something interesting with the top cover (like drilling a few thousand pinholes and installing LEDs inside the case) to art it up a bit.

Can anyone think of a reason that I should not do this? Assuming I can find solid studs to build the mounting hardware on, I can't. Any other advice welcome, and if you've seen something similar I'd love a link.

Can Address Book (OSX) show all of the LDAP entries in the given search base?

odinsdream — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:10:06 -0800

Creating a shared address book on an LDAP server to be accessed from Mac clients. Can I somehow get the directory to show all of the entries without having to search for one? Goal: Company address book stored in the LDAP server on OSX Server, searchable and browesable by anyone authenticated.

Here's my problem. All of the tutorials I've found end with Address Book connected to the LDAP server, and the entries stored, but you have to type a name to get it to show up. There is no list of entries in the directory.*

How can I get Address Book to show all of the LDAP entries in the given search base? This is a very small company, there is no danger of queries returning thousands of entries.

This is not going to fly with the client. "What do you mean I type in who I'm looking for? I don't know who I'm looking for, if I knew that I wouldn't be looking for them."

What's the best way to route DNS to a server?

odinsdream — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:57:48 -0800

Please help me set up reverse DNS properly for an XServe connected to a network I manage. I need to set up reverse DNS. What's the best way to do this?

I have an XServe. It's going to be hosting mail and websites for a handful of domains, all of which are handled by nameservers I control.

I can set up the ISP side of this either with one public address NATed and then give the XServe a private address, or I can possibly connect the XServe directly to one or more public IP addresses.

All of the tutorials and forum postings say that reverse DNS is required. They aren't clear on the specifics, however. If I give my server a private address, then even if I point one of my hostnames (xserve.example.com) to the public, internal reverse DNS queries will fail to map it.

Do I set up an internal-only DNS zone? Or, do I put the XServe directly on a public address and give it the hostname of xserve.example.com?

What's the "proper" way to set this up? Point all the domains to one IP, or get one IP per domain? Is reverse DNS something I set up, or is that something the ISP needs to do? If so - what specifically do they need to do?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, mainly because though I could probably get some hack to work, I would rather know what "professionals" actually do in this case.

Thanks for the advice!

Help me sell XServe to my boss and our client.

odinsdream — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:33:57 -0800

Help me recommend XServe to my boss and our client. Please share your personal experience with the XServe hardware and software, particularly the GUI tools for service management. I work for a small business that provides technical support for a local school. They have a very small IT budget, and no IT staff (except for select volunteer students).

Currently, they have two 7-10 year old NT 4.0 servers. One is running Exchange, and the other is just used as file storage.

I have no personal experience with the XServe, but reading their specifications, it seems to fit what this school is looking to do. For the most part, I'd like to know about any caveats with recommending this system and software to my boss, and to the school, that otherwise aren't obvious from reading the specs and reviews.

I'm a bit concerned that it doesn't yet have iCal Server built in, but could I install some web-based software while we wait for the release?

What won't this server be able to do for them? The biggest hurdle I need to overcome is the momentum generated from my boss' sole experience working with Exchange and Windows servers. He's open to the idea, but seems to only vaguely understand that Macs aren't locked-off in some proprietary realm apart from Windows machines anymore.

Personal opinions, experiences, and thoughts on such a recommendation?

Thanks!

Unknown Xserve interface + SATA hard drive = anything usable?

djacobs — Sat, 13 Nov 2004 11:07:55 -0800

We've got an empty drive cradle for our Xserve, and we've also got an extra SATA drive. I'd like to use the SATA in one of the Xserve slots. Problem is, it seems that Apple uses some kind of proprietary bridge to connect drives to the Xserve bus. I've posted pictures of the bridge attached to our current drives on flickr. Is there a bridge or similar product, Apple or third party, that we can use to mount our extra drive in the Xserve?

Xserve G5 experiences & opinions?

dglynn — Tue, 06 Jan 2004 23:20:18 -0800

Should we be considering the Xserve G5 for the hardware replacement cycle due to descend like a shadow upon our older Supermicro servers later this year? We use MySQL, Postfix, Apache, Courier-IMAP, FreeRADIUS, and pure-ftpd on FreeBSD. The Supermicros are Intel processors. Our user info is stored in MySQL, with all the above apps authenticating against the database, so we wouldn't replace our user management with Apple's GUI management tools. So does anyone have any opinions about the Xserve as hardware based on their direct experience with the previous models(I'm assuming they will be comparable)?