I know that the Xsan clients don't like when Xsan goes down. But IMHO
it should not crash or freeze the server.
I certainly share that opinion, but unfortunately, that is just the way things are with Tiger. I know that Leopard addressed the problem of system stability when network shares disappear, I don't have any experience with Leopard Xsan clients, though.
Sorry for insufficient information. Yes, I would like to move all home
directories there. Then mount it through AFP on Mac clients and Samba
on Windows. We are using Xsan volumes almost exclusively for video
editing and users only have couple of simple documents in their home
directories. In addition of course their profiles are stored there
too.
I'm trying to setup all the network in such a way, that during MDC
reboot or failure:
1. Users could still login into the workstations.
2. Xsan failure doesn't freeze logged in users (as their profile is writen to Xsan now).
3. It doesn't crash OpenDirectory master and replica.
Getting the home directories off the Xsan is certainly the right way to accomplish this goal.
As to the specific question of whether you can use a single FC HBA to attach an Xserve RAID and an Xsan to a machine, I don't have a definitive answer. I vaguely recall reading about someone having problems doing that.
As for the question of using that RAID as storage for network home directories, I can't imagine any advantages that would offer over storing the home directories on a(n) internal drive(s) of the server, but it should work just fine.
