Watchman Monitoring

R.A.I.S.

Redundant Array of Independent Servers

Comments 9/8/16 Resources 8/28/16 | Results 8/8/16 | Reviews 8/14/16 | Tutorials 8/5/16
NEW: T-Key Dongle Gallery 8/7/16

Since Apple stopped selling the Xserve on January 31, 2011, Server rooms are faced with a devil's bargain: the powerful Mac Pro server has great performance and the Mac mini has great economy and both make nice servers with Apple's $20 OS X Server app . But neither was designed as a rack-mountable modular system with the redundancy of available parts kits.

A possible solution is the R.A.I.S. suggested on AFP548.com

Take one Mac mini server configure as you like and enable its boot drive as a RAID member.
Boot the other Mac mini server into Target Disk Mode.
Connect them with a FW-800 cable (or ThunderBolt cable if the equipment supports it).
Add the TDM mini to the mirror that the boot drive is in.

Now if Primary Mac has blown a logic board, power supply, or drive you simply disconnect the TDM cable and start up the Secondary Mac without Target Disc Mode.

Voila! Redundancy! Costs less than an Xserve spare parts kit, too!

RAIS-ing the bar

Resources

This web page provides some resources for getting your RAIS together.

Performance - Power - Software/Monitoring - Network - Co-location - Target Disk Mode - Hardware Mods - Video- Racks - Expansion Docks

Click here to add your own resource.

Performance

Power

KVM-over-IP

Software/Monitoring

Network

Co-location

  • Mac Mini Vault - Data center with cabinets that fit over 140 minis. Milwaukee and Phoenix.
  • Green Mini host - Hosting provider that takes only Mac mini's, based in The Netherlands
  • Mac Mini Colo - Hosted in Las Vegas at Switch (touted as "America's safest data center").
  • MacStadium - Lots of tutorials on this site in /blog/category/howto.
  • Macminicolos - Hosted by Colocation America in Los Angeles.

Target Disk Mode

Video

Hardware Mods

Racks

Expansion/Docks

Miscellaneous

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Performance - Power - Software/Monitoring - Network - Co-location - Target Disk Mode - Hardware Mods - Video- Racks - Expansion Docks


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Reviews

Reviews of equipment from around the web.

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T-Key Dongle Gallery

A slide show of reader's T-key dongles submissions.

Send your submissions to: anarvey@precursor.ca

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Tutorials

Some tutorial instructions to help you get going.

80581 visitors.

Warning: No warrantee of the RAIS concept or its fitness for use is express or implied. Apple, Mac mini, and Mac OS X Server are trademarks of Apple, Inc. All other 3rd party hardware and software are trademarks of their respective owners.

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