Once the Xserve RAID storage arrays in Apple’s inventory sell out, the product will still be supported, but no longer sold.It is simply Xserve RAID’s time to go. There were several vendors at Macworld Expo showing quieter, cooler, cheaper and more compact alternatives. Apple can’t build Xserve RAID for as little money as other vendors do, and I don’t think there’s a revenue justification for Apple to go back to the drawing board to cook up a modernized array.Xserve RAID’s impending demise was predictable when Apple set Xserve and Mac Pro up with (optional) hardware RAID controllers and mixed SAS and SATA removable drives, but kept Xserve RAID stuck at parallel ATA. I should make it clear that PATA, striped across 14 drives with two kick-ass hardware RAID controllers, has the same bandwidth as a Serial ATA (SATA) drive. Neither SATA nor PATA can stand in for a 15,000 RPM Serially-Attached SCSI drive. Things of beauty, they are, but pricey. Still, a trio of 15K RPM SAS Apple Drive Modules, plus Xserve’s $999 hardware RAID controller, will kick Xserve RAID’s butt around the block gigabyte for gigabyte for performance, and with battery-backed cache, there’s no compromise in safety. I’m not saying that server-local storage is a replacement for an external array, but Apple is taking three drives as far as it’s possible to do. Mac Pro has room for four SAS or SATA drives when you add the RAID controller. Performance of hardware RAID SATA drives installed in Xserve is excellent.Apple has blessed Promise’s VTrak E-class arrays to replace Xserve RAID. VTrak arrays are very close in price and features to Xserve RAID, meaning that they’re neither lowball priced nor chintzy in features. But do shop around. Promise is a nice brand, but I’ve worked with Fibre Channel arrays from Dell, HP and Sun. You can play these vendors against each other for price. Apple will always sell VTrak at list price.Customers who already have Xserve RAID needn’t panic. They have at least five years of Apple support, and presumably Apple will continue selling Xserve RAID Apple Drive Modules for some time to come. However, I don’t expect to see Xserve RAID drive modules grow in capacity. A raw PATA drive and a small Philips screwdriver is all it takes to swap out an Xserve RAID drive for a larger one. When you eventually do decommission your Xserve RAID in favor of VTrak or some other solution, don’t let those server-validated, long-lived IBM/Hitachi Deskstar drives go to waste. Put them in external USB 2.0 enclosures to use with Airport Extreme or Time Capsule, or clip PATA-to-SATA adapters onto them for use in desktops. Software Development