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Xsan () is
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
's storage area network (SAN) or clustered file system for
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
. Xsan enables multiple Mac desktop and
Xserve Xserve is a line of rack unit computers designed by Apple Inc. for use as servers. Introduced in 2002, it was Apple's first designated server hardware design since the Apple Network Server in 1996. In the meantime, ordinary Power Macintosh G3 a ...
systems to access shared
block storage In computing (specifically data transmission and data storage), a block, sometimes called a physical record, is a sequence of bytes or bits, usually containing some whole number of records, having a maximum length; a ''block size''. Data thu ...
over a
Fibre Channel Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data cen ...
network. With the Xsan file system installed, these computers can read and write to the same storage volume at the same time. Xsan is a complete SAN solution that includes the
metadata controller Metadata controller (or MDC) is a storage area network (SAN) technology for managing file locking File locking is a mechanism that restricts access to a computer file, or to a region of a file, by allowing only one user or process to modify or ...
software, the file system client software, and integrated setup, management and monitoring tools. Xsan has all the normal features to be expected in an enterprise shared disk file system, including support for large files and file systems, multiple mounted file systems, metadata controller failover for fault tolerance, and support for multiple operating systems.


Interoperability

Xsan is based on the
StorNext File System StorNext File System (SNFS), colloquially referred to as StorNext is a shared disk file system made by Quantum Corporation. StorNext enables multiple Windows, Linux and Apple workstations to access shared block storage over a Fibre Channel networ ...
made by
Quantum Corporation Quantum Corporation is a data storage, management, and protection company that provides technology to store, manage, archive, and protect video and unstructured data throughout the data lifecycle. Their products are used by enterprises, media and ...
. The StorNext File System and the Xsan file system share the same file system layout and the same
protocol Protocol may refer to: Sociology and politics * Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states * Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state * Etiquette, a code of personal behavior Science and technology ...
when talking to the metadata server. They also seem to share a common code base or very close development based on the new features developed for both file systems. The Xsan website claims complete
interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...
with the StorNext File System: "And because Xsan is completely interoperable with Quantum’s StorNext File System, you can even provide clients on Windows, Linux, and other UNIX platforms with direct Fibre Channel block-level access to the data in your Xsan-managed storage pool." Quantum Corporation claims: "Complete interoperability with Apple’s Xsan and Promise RAID'' and ''Allows Xsan and Xserve RAID to support AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Windows clients, including support for 64 Bit Windows and Windows Vista." Some of the command line tools for Xsan begin with the letters cv, which stand for CentraVision – the original name for the file system. XSan clients use TCP ports 49152–65535, with TCP/63146 frequently showing in log files.


Data representation

Xsan file system uses several logical storages to distribute information. The two main classes of information appear on Xsan: the user data (such as files) and the file system metadata (such as folders, file names, file allocation information and so on). Most configurations use different storages for data and metadata. The file system supports dynamic expansion and distribution of both data and metadata areas.


History

On January 4, 2005, Apple announced shipping of Xsan. In May 2006, Apple released Xsan 1.2 with support for volume sizes of nearly 2
petabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
s. On August 7, 2006, Apple announced Xsan 1.4, which is available for
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
-based Macintosh computers as a
Universal binary The universal binary format is, in Apple parlance, a format for executable files that run natively on either PowerPC or Intel-manufactured IA-32 or Intel 64 or ARM64-based Macintosh computers. The format originated on NeXTStep as " Multi-Archi ...
and supports
file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
access control list In computer security, an access-control list (ACL) is a list of permissions associated with a system resource (object). An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on giv ...
s. On December 5, 2006, Apple released Xsan 1.4.1. On October 18, 2007, Apple released Xsan 1.4.2, which resolves several reliability and compatibility issues. On February 19, 2008, Apple released Xsan 2, the first major update, which introduces MultiSAN, and completely redesigned administration tools. 2.1 was introduced on June 10, 2008. 2.1.1 was introduced on October 15, 2008. 2.2 was released September 14, 2009. On July 20, 2011, Apple released Xsan 2.3, included in
Mac OS X Lion OS X Lion, also known as Mac OS X Lion, (version 10.7) is the eighth major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. A preview of OS X 10.7 Lion was publicly shown at the "Back to the Mac" Apple Speci ...
. This was the first version of Xsan included with
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
. On August 25, 2011, Apple released Xsan 2.2.2, which brought along several reliability fixes. On July 25, 2012, Apple released Xsan 3, included in
OS X Mountain Lion OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8) is the ninth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mountain Lion was released on July 25, 2012, for purchase and download through Apple's Mac Ap ...
. On October 17, 2014, Apple released Xsan 4 with
OS X Yosemite OS X Yosemite ( ; version 10.10) is the eleventh major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Yosemite was announced and released to developers on June 2, 2014, at WWDC 2014 and rel ...
. On September 20, 2016, Apple released Xsan 5 with
macOS Sierra macOS Sierra (version 10.12) is the thirteenth major release of macOS (formerly known as and ), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. The name "macOS" stems from the intention to uniform the operating syste ...
and
macOS Server macOS Server, formerly Mac OS X Server and OS X Server, is a discontinued series of Unix-like server operating systems developed by Apple Inc., based on macOS and later add-on software packages for the latter. macOS Server added serv ...
5.2. On November 12, 2020, Apple release Xsan 7 with
macOS Big Sur macOS Big Sur (version 11) is the seventeenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s operating system for Macintosh computers. It was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 22, 2020, and was released to the public ...
.


References


Krypted.com Xsan Tutorials and Documentation


External links


Apple's Xsan page
{{Apple Shared disk file systems Apple Inc. file systems Apple Inc. software