Filed under: Enterprise, Apple
XServe Raid no longer available, Apple partners with Promise
One of the features prominently touted by Apple in the new XSan 2 is its support for 3rd party storage solutions. It looks like there is a very good reason for that: Apple is no longer making the Xserve RAID. That's right, if you head on over to the XServe Raid's former home on Apple.com you're greeted with some information about the Promise VTrak E-Class RAID Subsystem, and a link to find out more on Promise's website.
It would seem that Apple wasn't making enough money in the fast paced Enterprise storage market and is bowing out. This makes lots of sense to me, since (for the most part) storage is a commodity market, and that is something Apple has never been interested in. Now the company can focus on making the software that one uses to power and manage your SAN (i.e. XSan 2) the best in the market (and judging from the screenshots it looks a lot better than most SAN software I've used).
Thanks, Tim.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brady Williams said 10:30AM on 2-19-2008
NOO APPLE ISNT MAKING ALL THERE OWN HARDWARE ANYMORE THERE BECOMING MICROSOFT NOOO
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Zak said 12:45PM on 2-19-2008
OH MY GOD. Apple is not making THEIR own hardware. not THERE. THERE is a place, like "look over THERE".
THEY'RE becoming Microsoft. NOT THERE. They're is short for "they are". That's why there's an apostrophe in the middle of it. Holy crap people, it's not that hard!
Rollins said 2:25PM on 2-19-2008
I don't think he was being serious, Zak. The grammatical errors were probably intentional.
jasonwrites said 3:59PM on 2-19-2008
Zak, while you're at the nitpicking, please move your period INSIDE your quotation marks. That's where it belongs, after all. It's not that hard.
brian said 4:22PM on 2-19-2008
Hey Zak, you forgot the "c" in your name.
brian said 4:44PM on 2-19-2008
Jason--that's debatable.
http://www.google.com/search?q=period+%22quotation+marks%22+inside+outside
One page of many: "Traditionally, English had it outside of the quotation marks. However, American English allows for it to be put inside. Either way is usually right, but you should at least be consistent. Also check with your publisher/teacher/editor/etc to see if they prefer one method over the other."
jasonwrites said 5:45PM on 2-19-2008
Brian - It's not really that debatable. You may find a handful of references to the old outside method, but in overwhelming majority in America is to place periods on the inside. The same Google search you referenced proves this point (most notably the Blue Book of Grammar). I make my living as a writer and have yet to find anyone placing the period on the outside as a matter of preference.
Zak said 7:38PM on 2-19-2008
Rollins: I hope it was intentional, but it probably wasn't.
jasonwrites: Interesting that you chose to nitpick my post rather than agree with it. Does that mean you agree with the OP's usage of THERE? Oh, and being a writer doesn't mean you're a spelling or grammar expert. If it did, you wouldn't need proofreaders or editors.
brian: You'll have to take that up with my parents.
larry said 10:34AM on 2-19-2008
so i'm waiting for a one of the last raids, should arrive in friday :)
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Sam W said 10:49AM on 2-19-2008
Just priced an X-RAID out on the 5th and started the PO process... going to start that again lol oh well... The new Promise VTrak systems are far faster it seems then the old X-RAIDs. Anyone have any comments on the Promise solution?
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Jack Beckman said 11:35AM on 2-19-2008
We have some Promise RAID here, and it works well, it's inexpensive, and they are very good to work with if you have questions. We actually looked at XServe RAID in the past but the Promise was faster and cheaper.
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hmurchison said 12:51PM on 2-19-2008
I don't mind the support for Promise equipment but sheesh man...if Apple can't sell anything other than computers and iPods those lofty 250 bucks a share prognostications sound like pipe dreams. As soon as iPod/iPhone sales are soft Apple's stock tanks. Shudder.
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Scott said 1:41PM on 2-19-2008
Well, if you look at the bottom of http://www.apple.com/xsan/resources/
you will still see the XSERVE under the "server" heading..Somebody is getting lazy over in cupertino!!
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Scott said 1:43PM on 2-19-2008
OOPS. looks like i got a little ahead of myself. The xserve is there but not the raid.... sorry
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Mike said 1:52PM on 2-19-2008
If Apple is going to promote a raid array from another company they could have at least sold them their chassis design so that I don't have to put that ugly thing in my racks of Apple gear. I'm not all about aesthetics, but come on you can't deny Xserve and Xserve Raids looks awesome. Let the run on the pretty stuff begin!!
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Just Cause said 5:17PM on 2-19-2008
I think this is a result of the OEM supplier being acquired, but I'm just guessing :-)
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NutMac said 6:50PM on 2-19-2008
Darn it. Where the heck am I going to get stylish and expensive RAID rack that will be hidden a data center?
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Not an Asshat said 11:18PM on 2-19-2008
Jeez, no wonder the professional Mac admins out there aren't reading TUAW anymore with commentary like this. Do any of you people have at least the slightest idea about SANs, Xsan, or how it compares to the rest of the market?
Apple released a single minor update to their Xserve RAID in four years; the last model that someone said he'd ordered was still using PATA (IDE/ATA) HDs. They didn't even make the jump to SATA. I'm certain that Apple's R&D group had some next-generation Xserve RAIDs in the works but in the end the bean-counters and management decided that it's better to partner with a 3rd-party to release RAID chassis for use with their Xsan product. The fact of the matter is that Apple's Xserve RAID just wasn't competing well in the SAN market. Rorke's Galaxy chassis were outperforming the Apple Xserve RAIDs, as were, I'm sure, several other vendors.
Apple made the smart move to get out rather than continue to try to sell a product that wasn't performing well. Note that Apple's still focusing on Xsan 2.0 and building kick-ass metadata controllers in the form of Xserves. I'm not criticizing Apple; just pointing out some sound business judgement. With other vendors aggressively targeting this Enterprise storage space (Isilon, Rorke, EMC, HP, Equallogic (Dell), just to name a few), it's no wonder Apple was finding it hard to compete.
But hey, let's all focus on sniping comments about proper grammar instead of discussing the actual issues.
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James Grinter said 7:28AM on 2-20-2008
Is Xsan 2 still based upon the Quantum (formerly ADIC) StorNext clustered filesystem product? They released v3.0 of that last year.
John Laur said 12:20PM on 2-20-2008
The Xserve RAID was initially attractive due to the price four years ago but if you seriously looked at it you realized very quickly that you needed a major investment to actually make it fault tolerant. You had to buy two Xserves, Xsan, and ideally two Xserve RAID chassis (though it was possible to configure a fairly small amount of redundant space with a single chassis) to guard against single point of failure situations with the hardware. So all things being equal you still ended up with a $20K ticket when you had other vendors doing the same level of fault tolerance inside of a single chassis for less money.
I agree with Mike above though; I don't really understand why they couldn't have slapped a brushed aluminum bezel onto the promise and labelled it Xserve RAID 2. The only logical conclusion is that Apple is underestimating the market for this and did not want to pursue another OEM deal - probably because sales of the initial Xserve RAID had sucked so bad. Still it's nice to see them support third party hardware once in a while...
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