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OWC Jellyfish User Guides

OWC Jellyfish XT Support Manual

Table of Contents

  1. Unboxing Your OWC Jellyfish XT
    1. Instruction Booklet and Welcome Card
    2. Power Cables
    3. OWC Jellyfish XT Chassis
    4. Inner and Outer Rails
    5. Bezel
    6. Drives
  2. How to Rack Mount the System (XT)
    1. Preparing For Installation
    2. Rack Installation
  3. How To Install Drives
  4. Installing The Bezel
  5. How to Connect a SAS Cable if Using an Expansion Bay
  6. Powering Your OWC Jellyfish On/Off
    1. Powering Your OWC Jellyfish On
    2. Powering Down Your OWC Jellyfish
  7. Ports and Cabling Overview
  8. How to Install and Set Up OWC Jellyfish Connect
    1. Installation
    2. Setup
    3. Creating Groups
    4. Creating New Users
  9. Optional Setup Steps
    1. Connecting Your OWC Jellyfish to the Internet
    2. Activating Your Integrations
    3. Kyno for OWC Jellyfish
    4. Media Engine
    5. Transferring Media to Your OWC Jellyfish
  10. OWC Jellyfish and Adapters
    1. Do I Need an Adapter?
    2. Which Adapter Do I Purchase?
    3. Adapter Settings & Drivers
  11. Additional Resources

Unboxing Your OWC Jellyfish XT

  • Congratulations on the purchase of your OWC Jellyfish XT! Everything you need will come shipped in two boxes, with the following items in the first box:

Instruction Booklet and Welcome Card

  • You’ll want to hang on to this handy resource. It contains important information, like quick links to our setup and support websites, and the serial number for your unit. The instruction booklet includes a guide for physical installation of the rails and rack.

Power cables (2)

  • These will plug into the back of the unit. We recommend connecting to an uninterrupted power supply (UPS).

The OWC Jellyfish XT Chassis

Inner and outer rails (2 pairs)

  • These will need to be installed to hold your XT in a rack cabinet. (Instructions on how to install these and rack mount your system will be detailed in the next section.)

Bezel

  • This is your tool-less, magnetized front cover of your XT. You'll need to remove it any time you need to access your drives.

Drives

  • You will receive two spare drives with your XT in case of a drive failure.

NOTE: There will be a second box with your 24 ready-to-install drives.

How to Rack Mount the System (XT)

  • In this section, you will learn everything you need to know about rack mounting your XT.

NOTE: Do not install your drives before rack mounting your system. Installing them after rack mounting the system prevents damage to the drives and chassis.

Preparing For Installation

  • First, you’ll need to separate the inner and outer rails.

1. Extend the inner rail until you see a silver pointed tab.

2. Slide the tab downward to release the inner rail and pull until separated.

3. Now, repeat the same process for the other rail. Locate the four posts noted here on your XT.

4. Line up the bigger holes on the inner rail with the posts on the chassis.

5. Now, slide the rail until the rail clicks into place.

6. Repeat the same process with the other rail on the other side of the chassis.

Rack Installation

  • The XT is a 2U unit, meaning it takes up two spaces in a traditional rack.

1. First, find an appropriate space for the XT in your server rack. The rails are on the top of the XT, so in this case we are choosing 24 through 25.

2. To insert the rails in your chosen space, pull the yellow safety locks of each end of the rail back.

3. Insert the front of the rail in your chosen space. Then, insert the back of the rail in the corresponding space in the rear.

4. Ensure the rail is level and engage the yellow safety locks on the front and the rear to secure the bracket into place. Repeat the same process on the other side.

5. Now extend the inner part of the right rail until it clicks. Repeat with the left rail.

6. Now, you’re ready to install your XT. This step will require the assistance of another person. Line up the rails attached to the chassis with the rails installed in your rack.

7. Ensure that the XT chassis is level and once both sides are aligned, gently push the XT into the rack. You will hear another click and meet some resistance.

8. Slide the silver tab located on both rails upward. This will release the resistance and you can slide your XT completely into the rack.

How to Install Drives

  • The next step after rack mounting your system is to install your drives into the body of your OWC Jellyfish XT. Drives will come pre-installed in their individual drive sleds.

1. With the tab open on the front, hold the drive as pictured.

2. Use one hand to press in the center of the hard drive and maintain the pressure. Then use the other hand to close the tab to lock the drive into place.

3. You’ll hear a click when it is securely installed.

4. Repeat this process until all 24 slots are full.

Installing the Bezel

  • After completing installation of all 24 drives, you will need to install the bezel on the front of your XT. The magnetic closure on this makes it simple to affix and remove, yet keeps it securely fastened to the XT body once in place.

1. With the logo on the bezel facing you, line up the cutout on the left with the power control panel on the front left of the XT.

2. They should fit together easily. You should feel the magnetic pull as you get the bezel very close to the front of the XT. Once it attaches, installation is complete. There are no screws to tighten. You are ready for the next steps in setting it up!

How to Connect a SAS Cable if Using an Expansion Bay

  • If your workflow requires additional storage, you may opt to utilize an expansion bay. In this event, you’ll need to connect your expansion bay directly to the OWC Jellyfish using a SAS cable.


1. Insert your cable into the correct HBA port, with the cable’s blue tab facing the right.

NOTE: SAS cables only fit one way. Please do not force these cables as doing so may damage the cable or the port itself.

2. In the event you need to remove the cable, you can do so by pulling on the blue tab to release the connection. Please do not pull on the cable itself.

Powering Your OWC Jellyfish On/Off

Powering Your OWC Jellyfish On

  • Once you’re all set up, you’ll need to power on your OWC Jellyfish.

1. Powering your XT on is very simple. The XT’s power button is located on the top left panel. The light underneath it next to the sun icon is the power indicator. This will illuminate a bright green light when the system is powered on, and the hard drives will light up green. When you use an Expansion Chassis, always make sure the Expansion Chassis is powered on before you power on the OWC Jellyfish.

Powering Down Your OWC Jellyfish

  • Powering down your OWC Jellyfish is just as simple.

1. Clicking the XT’s power button on the top left of the front panel will initiate shutdown.

NOTE: If you hold the power button, it will force-power off your XT, and can cause system corruption. You should always let it run its shutdown process whenever possible.

Ports and Cabling Overview

  • In this section, we will label the back layout of the OWC Jellyfish XT, including a brief description of every port. This will help you determine your cabling needs. Please note that all OWC Jellyfish orders are customized entirely, and your build may differ slightly from the model shown.

1 & 2: Cache Drive and Boot Drive (2) - The drives for these two will be pre-installed on your system. You will only need to access these if instructed by our support team to do so.

3 & 4: Power Supply Outlets - These two outlets will be used to connect power cables to a UPS (uninterrupted power supply).

5: Service port.

6: IPMI port - This is a service port and cannot be used for data access.

7, 8, 9, & 10: USB-3 Ports (4) - These are used to directly interface with the terminal without using a workstation. They are to be used if you would need to plug in a keyboard and mouse.

11 & 12: RJ-45 Ports (2) - These two built-in ports are capable of 10 GbE speeds.

13: VGA Port - This is a display connector for monitoring boot processes.

14 & 15: QSFP Ports (2) - These two ports are capable of 100GbE speeds.

16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, & 25: HBA Ports (10) - If you have purchased an expansion unit for your XT, you will need to connect them together using your SAS cable in one of the HBA ports. Please refer to page 14 for instructions.

How to Install and Set Up OWC Jellyfish Connect

Installation

  • Once your OWC Jellyfish is physically installed and cabled, you’ll need to get started getting your computer to connect via its software. First, you’ll want to download the OWC Jellyfish Connect app. https://download.owc.com/jellyfish/connect/

1. Launching the installer for OWC Jellyfish Connect is quick and simple. Read the introductory dialogue and click Continue through each page to acknowledge you’ve read the information. The second page of the installation dialogue has quick support links.

2. Next, read and acknowledge our software license agreement and click Continue.

3. After approving where the application will be installed, you’ll be prompted to enter your computer password. Enter these credentials and continue.

4. After successfully installing, you will be prompted to either keep or delete the installer. If you move it to the Trash, you can always download it again from the link on our site if you ever need to do so.

5. When installation is complete, click on the OWC Jellyfish icon in the top right menu of your screen. This will launch OWC Jellyfish Connect.

Setup

  • Under the Setup tab Your OWC Jellyfish will appear in the Discovered section.

1. Click on it to begin the configuration process.

2. A window will load to confirm your settings. Keep in mind that the OWC Jellyfish Connect app is changing some network settings and other configurations on your Mac, so you may be prompted to enter your Mac’s admin password. Click the check mark in the top right corner of the window to auto-connect to the OWC Jellyfish in the future.

3. Once this is complete, you will have successfully configured the connection to your OWC Jellyfish. Next, you will want to mount your shares. To find your shares, click on the Shares tab in the Connect app.

4. You will see that your OWC Jellyfish comes with one pre-configured share named “Jellyfish,” which is an SMB share.

5. To connect to your shares for the first time, click the toggle button.

6. When toggled on, it will be blue.

7. A login window will pop up. Be sure “Registered User” is selected, then enter the following default credentials:

  • Username: smb
  • Password: smb

NOTE: We strongly recommend changing the password for the SMB user.

8. Click the auto button if you’d like to automatically connect to the OWC Jellyfish going forward. For added security, we recommend not using Keychain or Credential Manager. That way access will be authenticated each time you connect.

9. Now that you’ve connected to the OWC Jellyfish for the first time, you will want to create a username and password for each team member. You can do this in Manager for OWC Jellyfish, which is your Jellyfish admin hub. To get to Manager for OWC Jellyfish, open your Connect app, click on the Resources tab, and click Manager for OWC Jellyfish. You can also access Manager for OWC Jellyfish at any time by navigating to jellyfish/ into your web browser. Additionally, you can access Manager for OWC Jellyfish by entering your port IP address into your web browser.

10. The main login will pop up and prompt you to enter your Manager for OWC Jellyfish credentials. You may use the following for setup:

  • Username: main
  • Password: luma

11. After your first login, you may want to change the password from the factory setting assigned above. To do so, click on the person icon in the top right corner and select “Change Password.”

12. Enter the new password you’d like to use and type it a second time to confirm. Be sure to not lose or forget this password.

13. When you’ve successfully entered the credentials, your Manager for OWC Jellyfish dashboard will load on your screen. Make sure to set up your system time on your OWC jellyfish to match our time zone, that way all your files will have the correct time stamps. To do this, click on System Time under the Dashboard menu.

14. To the right of the Time column, click on the Calendar icon.

15. This will bring up a calendar where you can change the date and time. You can select manually or click “Now” in the bottom left corner to bring it to the current time on your computer. Click “Ok” when finished.

16. To change the time zone, click on the drop-down arrow on the far right of the Timezone column.

17. Click on the appropriate time zone.

18. When you are satisfied with the time and date settings, click on the white arrow in the top right corner to save your changes.

Users & Groups

  • Now that you’ve set up your date and time, let’s explore Manager for OWC Jellyfish.

1. In the upper right corner, you’ll see several icons. Click on the Users and Groups tab.

2. This is where you will create new users and passwords. Additionally, you can create groups of users that will share the same level of permissions, which is very useful if you have a lot of people on your team.

Creating Groups

1. To create a new group, click on the plus sign to the right of the Groups column.

2. Enter a name for the new group in the Name field. From here, you can add people in multiple ways.

3. If you’ve already created users, you can use the search box by typing their names. Registered users in your system will begin to populate. You can also just scroll down the Other column and click on users that have already been created to add to your new group. If no users have been created, you can create them within this same window by clicking the plus sign next to the Users icon and registering them. Once you add a user to the group, you can assign permissions to this group by going back to the shares tab and adding the group to your designated share.

Creating New Users

1. To create a new user, click on the plus sign on the far right in the Users column.

2. You will be prompted to create a username and password for yourself. Please note that these are case-sensitive.

3. Before you hit the check mark on the top right of this box, be sure to toggle on the Admin button if you would like this OWC Jellyfish user to be an admin. Admin users will have rights to add new users, create new groups, reset passwords, and create/delete shares.

4. Toggle on the Media Engine button if you plan on using this tool to grant Media Engine access.

5. Lastly, if you’re creating a new username and password for someone on your team, you can toggle on Force Password Change. This will prompt the new user to create their own password after connecting to Manager for OWC Jellyfish. Click the checkmark to save your changes.

6. You can repeat this process for any number of users for your OWC Jellyfish and customize the individual settings based on each person’s needs and access permissions.

7. After you’ve created a new username and password for yourself and the users on your team, you are ready for the final step: granting access to your share spaces to your users. In the top right list of icons, click on the Shares tab, and you will see your pre-configured shares.

8. Here, you can grant your own access to the OWC Jellyfish. Click on the OWC Jellyfish share, then click on Edit next to Permissions.

9. A window will pop open with a list of users that already have access to your share space. To add a new user, click the plus sign on the top right of the Users column. Remember: without granting user permissions to a share, they will not be able to access it.

10. Alternatively, for setting permissions for users all at once, you can create a group. You can set Read and Write permissions for the group itself.

11. Click on all the users you want to have access to this share, then click the check mark in the top right corner of the window to add them.

12. Now assign what kind of access you’d like each user to have: Read, Write, or both. Read gives the user view-only permissions, while Write gives them permission and ability to edit files within this share space. Most users will have both Read and Write permissions.

13. Once you’ve decided on your users’ settings, you can save these changes by clicking the check mark in the top right corner.

14. If you work in FCPX, toggle the FCPX button on to ensure share compatibility.

Optional Setup Steps

  • So far, you’ve racked your XT, plugged in your cables, downloaded and installed your software, and connected your workstations. Next, we will break down a few optional steps you may want to take in setting up your new OWC Jellyfish. In this section, you’ll learn how to connect your OWC Jellyfish to the Internet and acquaint yourself with our many seamless software integrations.

Connecting Your OWC Jellyfish to the Internet

1. First, connect one of your OWC Jellyfish ports to your switch. OWC Jellyfish ports are always counted from top to bottom and left to right.

NOTE: Depending on your use case, you may want to utilize a 1GbE or 10GbE connection for your network connection. Please note that if you choose a 10GbE port, you will need a switch that is 10GbE compatible.

2. If you will have multiple users connecting simultaneously over LAN, we recommend using at least a 10GbE port. If you are only using it for an Internet connection, 1GbE should be sufficient. Be sure you are not using the IPMI port of the OWC Jellyfish as this will not provide access to your data.

3. Once you have connected to the correct port, log into Manager for OWC Jellyfish and go to the Networks page.

4. Select the port you connected to the switch or router.

5. Using the drop-down arrow on the right side of the MTU selection, set the MTU to 1500 if you are using a 1GbE connection, or 9000 if you are using a 10GbE connection.

6. Toggle on DHCP. Check your switch settings to make sure DHCP is enabled. This may be the default setting.

7. Click the checkmark in the top right corner to save.

8. Exit out of this dialogue box by clicking the “x” in the top left corner. Refresh the page.

9. The OWC Jellyfish port will now have an automatically assigned IP address.

10. Here are the recommended network settings for a 10GbE connection on a Mac:

  • Configure manually
  • Speed: 10GBaseT
  • Duplex: full-duplex
  • MTU: 9000
  • Make sure the box is unticked for AVB.

NOTE: These settings can be found by clicking the Apple logo in the top left of your screen and selecting System Preferences.

11. From here, select Network. Select your OWC Jellyfish connection in your list of network connections. Next, click Advanced at the bottom right corner of that dialogue box.

12. Click the Hardware tab on the right side to see your adjustable settings. When you’ve finished any necessary adjustments, click OK to save your changes.

13. Here are the recommended network settings for a 10GbE connection on a Windows:

  • Jumbo Packet = 9014 Bytes
  • Flow Control = Disabled
  • Interrupt Moderation Rate = Low
  • Interrupt Moderation = Disabled

Activating Your Integrations

  • There are many integrations you can use with the OWC Jellyfish. These can help maximize the efficiency of your workflow. You will need to input license keys and/or usernames and passwords for these integrations.

1. To access them, open Manager for OWC Jellyfish and click on the Integrations tab in the upper right corner.

2. Here you will find a list of services that work with your OWC Jellyfish.

Kyno for OWC Jellyfish

  • A media management application for macOS and Windows. It provides five main functions: pro video file playback, verified transfers, transcoding, metadata tagging, and locating media by metadata. Many teams find it to be a very helpful tool.

1. Our support team will supply you with all the necessary information to get set up. You’ll need to enter your email you want to register with, along with the serial number, and client secret. If you haven’t been provided with this information, please reach out to our support team and we will happily provide the necessary credentials.

2. When you are finished, click the white checkmark in the top right corner to save your changes.

3. When your credentials are successfully entered and saved, the indicator next to the Kyno for OWC Jellyfish tab will turn blue.

4. Next, you’ll need to download the app. In OWC Jellyfish Connect, click on the Resources tab, and find the Download button next to Kyno for OWC Jellyfish.

5. This will automatically download the Kyno for OWC Jellyfish app. You can find it in your Downloads folder. After the installation finishes, you are now ready to begin implementing Kyno’s many useful functions into your team’s workflow!

6. Once you have entered the license info in Manager for OWC Jellyfish, mount a OWC Jellyfish on your workstation, and then launch Kyno.

Media Engine

  • Up next, we will set up Media Engine. It is a convenient tool for running transcoding jobs inside the OWC Jellyfish itself.

1. In order to enable Media Engine, Kyno for OWC Jellyfish must be activated on at least one workstation. After that, any user who’s been granted Media Engine access can click Launch to begin or navigate to jellyfish/media/.

2. Media Engine will only show shares and folders for which a user has been granted permissions. From here, your team can utilize this simple tool to maximize efficiency in your workflow.

Transferring Media to Your OWC Jellyfish

  • In order to transfer media to your OWC Jellyfish, you need to mount your shares.

1. In OWC Jellyfish Connect, click on the Shares tab.

2. From there, find the OWC Jellyfish share and click on the toggle button on the right side of it.

3. You will be prompted to enter your OWC Jellyfish username and password. After entering your credentials, click Connect.

4. The toggle button will now be blue, and you will see a notification that the OWC Jellyfish share has been mounted successfully. Now you are ready to drag and drop your media so your team can get to work!

5. Depending on your Finder preferences, the share may appear either on your Desktop or in a Finder window.

6. Double click the icon and it will be viewable to you just like any folder on your computer. From here, you can drag and drop media, create folders, delete files, and organize in any way you see fit.

NOTE: If by chance this icon does not appear on your Desktop, you may need to adjust your preferences in Finder. Open Finder, and click on the Finder menu in the top left toolbar on your screen. Select “Preferences” and be sure “Connected servers” is selected. Click the red “X” in the corner to exit and save your changes.

OWC Jellyfish and Adapters

Do I Need an Adapter?

  • If you have an iMac Pro, the most recent Mac Mini, or a PC with a 10GbE enabled port, you can plug directly into the OWC Jellyfish without having a network adapter and start editing 4K - 8K media without transcoding or going to a proxy workflow Here are a few indicators that you may need an adapter:
    • If there is not an ethernet connection to your workstation.
    • If there is a 1GbE connection but you need 10GbE for 4k and up workflows.
    • If more ethernet ports are needed on the workstation than what is provided.

Which Adapter Do I Purchase?

Adapter Settings & Drivers

Additional Resources