Apple retires Xserve RAID; MacBook Keyboard Update; more

[AppleInsider]

Lost in the (iPod) shuffle, Apple on Tuesday quietly retired its Xserve RAID storage unit in favor of third-party devices. Also, a new firmware update for Apple portables aims to cure unresponsive keyboards, Gameloft has hinted at games for the iPhone, and even Adobe spokespeople aren't sure if Flash will be available on the device.

Apple discontinues Xserve RAID

While most attention was centered on the introduction of the 2GB iPod shuffle, Apple on Tuesday removed its Xserve RAID storage device from the company's online store.

Users who try to visit the product page for the three-unit rackmount device find themselves automatically redirected to a page that promotes the VTrak E-Class, a similarly-sized replacement from third-party manufacturer Promise.

The Mac maker bills the VTrak device as an "ideal" storage hub for Xsan 2, its storage area network (SAN) software which was introduced today and touts certification for third-party RAID storage as one of its main enhancements.

Apple has noted that some Xserve RAID units remain in the channel, though without first-party sales is likely to be confined to third-party sales until supplies run out.

Apple posts MacBook, MacBook Pro Keyboard Firmware Update 1.0

Apple has also posted Keyboard Firmware Update 1.0 (876KB) for MacBook and MacBook Pro systems.

The update requires Mac OS X 10.5.2 or later and is intended to fix an issue that would cause initial unresponsiveness in the keyboard after the system has remained idle. Some "other issues" are addressed, Apple says.

The fix is believed to address user complaints about multiple generations of either portable line randomly losing keyboard input, which in some cases has required a system restart.

Gameloft exec shows iPhone mockup, aims for iPhone games

Attendees of a keynote speech by Gameloft chief Michel Guillemot for this week's Game Developer Conference were given a surprise when a presentation by the executive showed what appeared to be one of the French firm's games running on an iPhone in a video segment promoting mobile games.

While the image itself is likely a mockup unconnected to any particular release, Guillemot has expressed a desire to bring his company's games to the Apple handset. The official software development kit for the iPhone, due before the end of the month, is expected to ease programming efforts for third parties.

The company is also one of the most likely candidates to provide the first games for the touchscreen phone, having produced key titles for iPod media players.

Adobe staff: Flash for iPhone remains a mystery

Even as reports claim an imminent release of Adobe's Flash animation plugin for the iPhone's Safari web browser, a prominent Adobe worker notes that development, if any, remains secret beyond the most senior officials at the company despite customer demand.

Internet application spokesman Ryan Stewart suggests that no common workers at Adobe appear to know anything about the software, which would grant the iPhone access to a much wider range of websites.

"I assume someone at the high levels of Adobe knows what the status is but I don't and everyone I talk to doesn't. That's because only Apple really knows anything about it," he says.

Stewart in turn suggests that the most likely route to gaining Flash support for the iPhone would be to contact Apple itself, as it controls what software is allowed to run on the cellphone. "This isn't Adobe's device," he says.

[dontlookleft]

curious about the fix for the keyboards...

any luck with this update?

[Zandros]

Originally Posted by dontlookleft

curious about the fix for the keyboards...

any luck with this update?

I'm unsure if I should install it. I haven't had any problems, and the old adage "don't fix what isn't broken" makes me think I'm better off without it.

/Adrian

[jasenj1]

Originally Posted by dontlookleft

curious about the fix for the keyboards...

any luck with this update?

I used a fix I found on the Apple boards that involved booting into single user mode, repairing permissions, and rebooting. Fixed the problem for me. But it may pop up again if the "wrong" files get updated.

I think I'll wait till the problem shows up again before updating.

- Jasen.

[wirc]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Lost in the (iPod) shuffle...

That pun was egregious, Kasper. I hope you're proud of yourself.

[Bowser]

I'm running 10.5.2 and my trackpad becomes unresponsive for several moments, as long as a second or more, after using the keyboard. If I use the arrow keys to select among items in Keynote for example, and then go to move the cursor with the trackpad, there is no response from the trackpad. Repeatedly trying to move the cursor by moving my finger across the trackpad does nothing, it's always a time delay and not remedied by more attempts to move the cursor. I've had this problem since I got my MBP last month. I'm getting very frustrated by it and updating to 10.5.2 from 10.5.1 did nothing to resolve the problem.

[morrisman1]

im wondering if this could address a problem which i had untill yesterday - an intermittant zero key on my 2.2 SR macbook. it would only work sometimes. sometimes meaning every 3rd press or so of the key wouldnt register. got the upper case replaced under applecare yesterday when they might not have been anything wrong with it! ive got the old keyboard sitting in the cupboard so might have a perfectly fine spare.

[WelshDog]

I have 5 Xserve Raids used for our final Cut systems. Wow this is a bummer. We really liked being able to buy all the components of our systems from one vendor (excepting the Kona cards). The Xserve Raids are so good - ZERO problems over the last few years. I'm sure the Promise raids are good, but . . . .

I hope this is not a sort of sideways confirmation of the rumor that Apple wants out of the pro app business. If they aren't going to be selling Final Cut what do they need a raid for?

[Robre]

Originally Posted by dontlookleft

curious about the fix for the keyboards...

any luck with this update?

I'll install the keyboard update tonight. I have occasional keyboard hang-ups in Filemaker and constant 1/2 to 1 second hangs in Visio 2003 running under Parallels 3.0 (when I do duplicates). I'll see. Hope it helps.

[Buck]

Oh yuck. So now instead of wonderful Apple tools for RAID management we'll have to use some half-assed web-based thing that Promise has ported from IE to Safari in a week? Aesthetically the new RAID is no match to the original one as well. Conrad Klahn on macos-x-server list writes:

We have decided to focus our efforts where we can add the most value, with Xserve, Xsan and Leopard Server.

and

Xserve RAID is still available while supplies last and we will continue to sell the 500GB and 750GB drive modules in addition to Apple Service Parts Kits with 500GB and 750GB drives.

among other things. Oh well. I wonder if it really took such an effor for Apple to develop the RAID system. Things don't look good for the server... I really hope they're not abandoning the space slowly.

[unclepezza]

Originally Posted by Buck

Oh yuck. So now instead of wonderful Apple tools for RAID management we'll have to use some half-assed web-based thing that Promise has ported from IE to Safari in a week? Aesthetically the new RAID is no match to the original one as well. Conrad Klahn on macos-x-server list writes:

and

among other things. Oh well. I wonder if it really took such an effor for Apple to develop the RAID system. Things don't look good for the server... I really hope they're not abandoning the space slowly.

Can you provide the link to the quotes from Conrad? I'd like to read around the topic.

Regards

[pixelcruncher]

And once again, the pros are left holding the bag. Why is Apple trying so hard to drive the pros away? The minute Apple discontinues support for Xserve RAID, the clock is ticking. One dead drive means my entire $10,000 investment is history once Apple stops shipping replacement drives. Wow. Apple has to know that's $10,000 I can't spend on Apple hardware, since I have to buy a new RAID system. Apple spends all their R&D producing products that are little more than ways of accessing iTunes. They've emerged as the Tower Records of the internet, and that's great, but what about those of us that actually use our equipment for business?

[ak1808]

Originally Posted by wirc

That pun was egregious, Kasper. I hope you're proud of yourself.

Does that mean it was good or bad?
Dictionary confuses me here and I'm not a native speaker ;-).

[Dave K.]

Originally Posted by pixelcruncher

And once again, the pros are left holding the bag. Why is Apple trying so hard to drive the pros away? The minute Apple discontinues support for Xserve RAID, the clock is ticking. One dead drive means my entire $10,000 investment is history once Apple stops shipping replacement drives. Wow. Apple has to know that's $10,000 I can't spend on Apple hardware, since I have to buy a new RAID system. Apple spends all their R&D producing products that are little more than ways of accessing iTunes. They've emerged as the Tower Records of the internet, and that's great, but what about those of us that actually use our equipment for business?

Just out of curiosity, why would you buy any equipment from a company that historically has treated businesses like crap?

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by pixelcruncher

And once again, the pros are left holding the bag. Why is Apple trying so hard to drive the pros away? The minute Apple discontinues support for Xserve RAID, the clock is ticking. One dead drive means my entire $10,000 investment is history once Apple stops shipping replacement drives. Wow. Apple has to know that's $10,000 I can't spend on Apple hardware, since I have to buy a new RAID system. Apple spends all their R&D producing products that are little more than ways of accessing iTunes. They've emerged as the Tower Records of the internet, and that's great, but what about those of us that actually use our equipment for business?

It is a surprise. I've seen at least one web site that showed people how to use them on non-Apple clusters
I think they would have to keep replacement parts available at least three years from today. If nothing else, I imagine there will be services that swap hard drives from their cartridges. After three years, I think it's a matter of how long Seagate and the like keeps making ATA ES hard drives. Being ES, I'd think they'd support the drives for quite some time but you should ask the hard drive makers.

[troberts]

Originally Posted by WelshDog

I have 5 Xserve Raids used for our final Cut systems. Wow this is a bummer. We really liked being able to buy all the components of our systems from one vendor (excepting the Kona cards). The Xserve Raids are so good - ZERO problems over the last few years. I'm sure the Promise raids are good, but . . . .

I hope this is not a sort of sideways confirmation of the rumor that Apple wants out of the pro app business. If they aren't going to be selling Final Cut what do they need a raid for?

Isn't using 3rd party RAID systems better in the long run because it will be easier to move an Xserve into the enterprise? With OS X 10.5 being a true UNIX will it be easier for other RAID suppliers to offer products that support Leopard?

[jcatma61]

Those guys have a 25 year culture of saying the stupidest things.

"It's not our device..." sounds remarkably like the Adobe line on Acrobat PostScript issues over the years, which was always, "since we wrote the language, the PS 'problems' you speak of must not be PS at all, but something wrong with your printer or your workstation... perhaps a user issue..."

Jerks.

[doemel]

Originally Posted by jcatma61

Jerks.

Amen! Plus, they've gotten way too big for their own good. We desperately need someone to take on Adobe in the DTP and image editing field! Monopoly is bad and Adobe just proved that once more with their CS3 suite.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by jcatma61

Those guys have a 25 year culture of saying the stupidest things.

"It's not our device..." sounds remarkably like the Adobe line on Acrobat PostScript issues over the years, which was always, "since we wrote the language, the PS 'problems' you speak of must not be PS at all, but something wrong with your printer or your workstation... perhaps a user issue..."

Jerks.

Am I mistaken? Was the 'it's' not if reference to the iPhone. If so, what is your problem?

[suhail]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

It is a surprise. I've seen at least one web site that showed people how to use them on non-Apple clusters
I think they would have to keep replacement parts available at least three years from today. If nothing else, I imagine there will be services that swap hard drives from their cartridges. After three years, I think it's a matter of how long Seagate and the like keeps making ATA ES hard drives. Being ES, I'd think they'd support the drives for quite some time but you should ask the hard drive makers.

We can only hope, I doubt they'll update the XRAID's firmware to accept drives beyond 750GB in the coming years, I doubt they'll update the XRAID's RAID software. Although the name "Promise" is the cheesiest name for a RAID and makes their articles difficult to read, the Promise RAID does not seem all that bad, but for us who invested heavily in Apple technology this is Dejavu, no sign of support for future firmware or software. The 250GB drives must be bought from Apple because they are 2MB larger than the ones in the market; otherwise you'll need to replace a dead 250GB with a 500GB and format it as a 250.

[bjojade]

It's sad to see the Xserve RAID go away. When it was introduced, it was one of the cheapest RAID systems out there. The neat thing is it really looked nice in a rack with a couple of Xserves. The great thing is that it just WORKED. I've worked with a couple dozen units and have only seen the occasional drive failure, which is to be expected.

Now, I've worked with a few other company's RAID systems and the experience has been anything but stellar. From the cheap desktop RAIDs to the $20,000 systems. The problem is long term support. These RAID companies tend to come and go, or get bought and sold. When that happens, the old products are left abandoned with no support at all. How long has 'promise' been around? Will they be here in 5 years?

Typically, if you install a RAID like this, you expect at least 5 years of functionality out of it, maybe more.

I have old Xserve RAIDs that I still do upgrades on on occasion. We were able to install them with the 'promise' that they could be upgraded in the future. It's going to be a tougher sell for this third party solution unfortunately, especially since the cost of entry is twice what the Apple solution was.

[mstone]

Originally Posted by WelshDog

I hope this is not a sort of sideways confirmation of the rumor that Apple wants out of the pro app business. If they aren't going to be selling Final Cut what do they need a raid for?

Final Cut is probably safe for now due to the importance of Apple's focus on video for aTV, video rentals, iTunes, Quicktime and video iPods/iPhones. They'll want to be in the whole video content, compression and delivery workflow as it relates very closely to the consumer side of the business they seem to be banking on.

I sure don't want to go back to Avid or Premiere although I will keep them around and up to date just in case.

[datamodel]

Coming from a storage more than an Apple background, Xserve Raid's had a great reputation for being cheap, easy and fast but not very featureful.

Presumably Apple decided the margins and competition made conitnued investment uneconomical, or plain decided to spend the moneye elsewhere - it's a busy market, and not that many players are making money. Making it harder for the low-end player like Apple is that the tech in mid-range boxes are starting to trickle down to smaller products.

An EMC CLARiiON AX4 (SAS or SATA array) runs the same software as the big ones, starts at about $9,000 and has snapshots, remote replication, and all sorts, scales to 60 drives (from 750 GB SATA to 15,000 rpm SAS), does RAID6, and is part of a line that refreshed every six months or so.

With players like EMC, LSI Logic, HDS pushing down into the Xserve Raid's space and the low end player pushing up, it's probably a good decision for Apple - it's not a market they can dominate, and margins are just getting thinner.

Cheers,

Martin.

[suhail]

Originally Posted by mstone

Final Cut is probably safe for now due to the importance of Apple's focus on video for aTV, video rentals, iTunes, Quicktime and video iPods/iPhones. They'll want to be in the whole video content, compression and delivery workflow as it relates very closely to the consumer side of the business they seem to be banking on.

I sure don't want to go back to Avid or Premiere although I will keep them around and up to date just in case.

It's kinda nerve wreaking to see Apple's Pro apps hidden under menus towards the bottom of the Store. Apple used to have a Pro Tab on their website, and now they don't! I almost forgot that Shake was an Apple product, and WebObjects has been abandoned (updated recently for compatible with Leopard), on the Apple store WO has a 1 star rating for abandonment.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by bjojade

It's going to be a tougher sell for this third party solution unfortunately, especially since the cost of entry is twice what the Apple solution was.

Could you explain? This seems to be in contrast to what Ars is reporting, i.e.,

Apple: Xserve RAID is dead! Long live Promise VTrak RAID!
By Chris Foresman | Published: February 19, 2008 - 12:41PM CT

"We just had a conversation with Eric Zelenka, senior product line manager of Apple's server and storage software, wherein he cleared up the case of the disappearing Xserve RAID. As everyone suspected, the reason it disappeared is because, well, it's gone.

Some wondered why Apple didn't update the Xserve RAID with SATA drives and updated Fibre Channel ports. "Promise VTrak RAID already has great performance in our testing," Zelenka told us, and delivers it at a great price: about $1 per gigabyte. According to Promise, the E-class RAID delivers "an unbeatable 26 streams of 8-bit uncompressed standard definition video and supports capacities up to 24TB per configuration, starting at just $1.12 per gigabyte." That's not the kind of price/performance ratio one would want to get caught sneezing at.…

Zelenka assured us that Xserve RAIDs will be sold while supplies last, and that current Xserve RAIDs will continue to be supported with drive modules and Xsan compatibility. But going forward, all future SAN deployments will be set up using the Promise VTrak systems. The systems are available through the Apple Store and from authorized retailers, starting at the paltry sum of just $11,999.95. Don't balk, though—that's still some $400 cheaper than the low-end Xserve RAID."

http://arstechnica.com/journals/appl...ise-vtrak-raid

[mh71]

Originally Posted by datamodel

Coming from a storage more than an Apple background, Xserve Raid's had a great reputation for being cheap, easy and fast but not very featureful.

...

Cheers,

Martin.

Martin,

This will seem like a dumb question, but what features are needed in a RAID that Apple didn't provide?

[mdriftmeyer]

Apple certified this 3rd party RAID System and others before it quietly closed it's own product down.

What I find is typical is the gutless transition to this product line.

Apple gets accused of not supporting 3rd parties and when they do it's done behind closed doors and done by sacrificing one of their competing options to help out a 3rd party.

Here's a thought: Support the 3rd party and sell your own competing products.

If you want to encourage 3rd party hardware to run Apple software on it you can't just dip your foot into the water. You have to extend this concept with the rest of your software lineup.

That won't happen, but it will forever keep Apple sacrificing any heavy iron options while it hordes the consumer space with an end-to-end solution from Apple.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

Apple certified this 3rd party RAID System and others before it quietly closed it's own product down.

What I find is typical is the gutless transition to this product line.

Apple gets accused of not supporting 3rd parties and when they do it's done behind closed doors and done by sacrificing one of their competing options to help out a 3rd party.

Here's a thought: Support the 3rd party and sell your own competing products.

If you want to encourage 3rd party hardware to run Apple software on it you can't just dip your foot into the water. You have to extend this concept with the rest of your software lineup.

That won't happen, but it will forever keep Apple sacrificing any heavy iron options while it hordes the consumer space with an end-to-end solution from Apple.

What the heck does all that mean?

[sandor]

Originally Posted by pixelcruncher

And once again, the pros are left holding the bag. Why is Apple trying so hard to drive the pros away? The minute Apple discontinues support for Xserve RAID, the clock is ticking. One dead drive means my entire $10,000 investment is history once Apple stops shipping replacement drives. Wow. Apple has to know that's $10,000 I can't spend on Apple hardware, since I have to buy a new RAID system. Apple spends all their R&D producing products that are little more than ways of accessing iTunes. They've emerged as the Tower Records of the internet, and that's great, but what about those of us that actually use our equipment for business?

as of now, apple is still selling replacement parts for the RAID, and, historically, apple has continued offering replacement parts for their products long after discontinuation.


Furthermore, the xserve RAID was very long in the tooth. ATA-100 in the days of SATA-300? right. i think when apple entered the RAID market, the xserve RAID was tremendous, but at this point, it doesnt make sense to update the hardware when they can simply continue to create the software to control it. i would rather have apple pour more resources into making Xsan *excellent* instead of *decent* and let other manufacturers supply the box full of hard drives and raid controllers.

[datamodel]

Originally Posted by mh71

Martin,

This will seem like a dumb question, but what features are needed in a RAID that Apple didn't provide?

Not at all, it's a geeky old business storage. Going by what you get on low to mid-range EMC CLARiiONs:

RAID6 (two disks can fail, and you still don't lose data)

Additional drive shelves (An AX4 shelf is 3.5 inches high with 12 drives, and you can have five shelves in the array (up to 45 TB raw). The big ones (CX3-80's) hold up 480 drives (336 TB raw).

Bigger caches for better performance - I believe the Xserve RAID has 1 or 2 GB of cache. That's about normal for smaller arrays. CLARiiONs run from 2 Gb up to 16 Gb, the high end Symmetrix boxes can hold 512 GB of cache memory.

Snapshots - make a "point-in-time" copy of your data, without using loads of storage (it just keeps changed data and lets you roll them back, or have another server see the snapshot - this is useful for having another server back up the data for instance, you stop your database or whatever to make the disk quiet, snap it, start the database up again and the backup happens elsewhere)

Clones - Full copies of data, you can resync them quickly and/or use them on other systems

Replication - having all the data mirrored to another array on the SAN (or elsewhere, if you have more money). This can be realtime or near realtime. More modern arrays have "consistency groups" which means a set of virtual disks will all sync as one, which i important for databases that span lots of virtual disks

SAN Copy - being able to copy data across the SAN from various other arrays without any server being involved

Analyser - low level graphical analysis for troubleshooting, show throughput on different bits, seek distance of drives heads and the like.

MetaLUNs - the ability to change a virtual disk from RAID0 to RAID1, RAID5, RAID6 as you like, while the server is accessing it (takes ages mind).

Dial Home - the arrays use a modem or email to contact the vendor in the event of a failure, so if you're slack they just call you and arrange to pop round with a new disk and change it for you.

Ability to manage lots of array's from a single console

iSCSI connections (iSCSI is fibre channel over Ethernet network) at 1 Gig or 10 Gig. Cheap iSCSI arrays are also undermining the XServe RAID, although I think you still need a third party driver to use them.

Being able to use lots of disks - the CLARiiON line covers 7200, 10000, 15000 rpm drives in Fibre Channel, SAS, and SATA from 36 up to 750 Gb. The high end arrays (Symmetrix) also have 73 and 146 GB SSDs, at around £50,000 per disk.

Obviously pretty much no-one needs *all* of these features and there are other ays to do most of them, but some are useful to most people, and they tend to be part of a "solution" involving more than one site, several servers, backup systems and what have you.

Hope that all helps!

Cheers,

Martin.

[Haggar]

Another missing feature is controller failover. In the Xserve RAID, one controller controls the left half of the unit and another controller controls the right half. The 2 sides are independent. If one controller fails, there is no redundancy like there is for the power supply or cooling module.

But instead of simply discontinuing the Xserve RAID, Apple should have replaced it with an upgraded model that addresses the concerns of customers.

[wmf]

Originally Posted by Haggar

But instead of simply discontinuing the Xserve RAID, Apple should have replaced it with an upgraded model that addresses the concerns of customers.

So would y'all be happy if Apple came out with a new Xserve RAID that has the same specs and price as the Promise RAID? Besides the name, what is the problem here?

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by wmf

So would y'all be happy if Apple came out with a new Xserve RAID that has the same specs and price as the Promise RAID? Besides the name, what is the problem here?

Single vendor to deal with (on neck to choke) and comittment to delivering solid product. Apple's actions speak loudly. They aren't interested in delivering solutions to business needs beyond delivering iPods and iPhones.

[Abster2core]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

Single vendor to deal with (on neck to choke) and comittment to delivering solid product. Apple's actions speak loudly. They aren't interested in delivering solutions to business needs beyond delivering iPods and iPhones.

Obviously, you don't know what you are talking about. You want single vendor and a commitment to deliver solid products, start at http://www.apple.com/xsan/resources/. If you can't figure it out from there, you don't belong in this league.

As for parts replacement, how many of us only use our 'cars' manufacturers for replacement, service or repair. Certainly unlikely after the warranty period. And certainly not in those institutions where we have our own experienced personnel to do so.

And look at what most of us do now. Our hard drives go down or we want to increase storage size we can buy from Apple and install it ourselves, have Apple do it, have an Apple-certified service do it or your brother-in-law do it. In any case that drive is a third-party product that can be bought elsewhere. Same for batteries, mice, keyboards, etc., but the motherboard. Ask your spouse or mother how many times they called in the Maytag man.

As for the XSan 2, it would appear that Apple has well thought out how, when and where and are well committed to deliver. It is a major ticket item. It is not an iPod, and for those certainly in the know and the majority of current users of Apple products and services in this area aren't concerned as some of the same malcontents that repeat the same accusatory propaganda for everything that Apple does.

To state that Apple isn't, "interested in delivering solutions to business needs beyond delivering iPods and iPhones," is simply an unsupported malicious lie.

[nvidia2008]

A word of caution, you must let the Keyboard Firmware app run fully otherwise your trackpad and laptop keyboard will stop working. That happened to me. I plugged in an external USB mouse and keyboard, ran the Keyboard Firmware app thingy again, making sure I did not interrupt it, and voila, no worries.

[mstone]

After updating, I have experienced weird backlighting issues. The keyboard back light flashes on and off as I type. On one second and then off the next. I'm in medium ambient light, but it never did this before the update. In fact I never had any of the problems that the update was supposed to fix either. Anyone else seeing this behavior?

m

[d0uble0se7en]

Originally Posted by mstone

After updating, I have experienced weird backlighting issues. The keyboard back light flashes on and off as I type. On one second and then off the next. I'm in medium ambient light, but it never did this before the update. In fact I never had any of the problems that the update was supposed to fix either. Anyone else seeing this behavior?

m

I just sent my macbook pro in because of the stupid keyboard COMPLETELY dying. I get it back and the keyboard backlight acted INSANE. it would pulse on and off...the keys were completely wrong and broken. they weren't working right at all. i sent it in thursday and am picking up my computer (AGAIN) today. I hope it's fixed, but I'll tell you one thing---i was on the phone with them for two hours testing this. they are either unaware of the problem or there is no fix yet available for you at home because they DID have me send it in for these backlighting issues (though maybe that's because they just replaced the keyboard who knows)

[frankie]

How does this Raid compare-anyone familiar or use this?

http://www.CalDigit.com/HDPro.asp

Thanks!

[macnyce]

[QUOTE=WelshDog;1217808]I have 5 Xserve Raids used for our final Cut systems. Wow this is a bummer. We really liked being able to buy all the components of our systems from one vendor (excepting the Kona cards). The Xserve Raids are so good - ZERO problems over the last few years. I'm sure the Promise raids are good, but . . . .

I hope this is not a sort of sideways confirmation of the rumor that Apple wants out of the pro app business. If they aren't going to be selling Final Cut what do they need a raid for?[/QUOT


Apple also bailed on NAB this year, Medea has a competetive raid, now owned by AVID. Media composer full blown software only costs 5 grand. Looks like apple is pulling out. They tried to take on Avid but not sure how much of a dent they made. Sad to see the raid go, even sadder to think this is just the begining of the end.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by macnyce

Apple also bailed on NAB this year, Medea has a competetive raid, now owned by AVID. Media composer full blown software only costs 5 grand. Looks like apple is pulling out. They tried to take on Avid but not sure how much of a dent they made. Sad to see the raid go, even sadder to think this is just the begining of the end.

I thought Apple sold like over half a million copies of Final Cut Studio. That's a half billion right there, not counting the hardware needed to run the software. Then there are the aspirers like I once was that decided to try Apple because of their pro software. Apple gets plenty of coverage and mileage out of FCS.

Apple doesn't really need to provide the drive arrays, when they started, there weren't (m)any available for Apple machines. There are maybe six drive array makers targetting the FCP video producer, each with several different products.