Welcome! How can we help you?

Congratulations on the purchase of your 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 Jellyfish XT chassis. Note: the XT will not have any drives in it when shipped.

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.)

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

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

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. To do so, extend the inner rail until you see a silver pointed tab.

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

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

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

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

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. 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The next step after rack mounting your system is to install your drives into the body of your Jellyfish XT. Drives will come pre-installed in their individual drive sleds. With the tab open on the front, hold the drive as pictured.

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.

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

Repeat this process until all 24 slots are full.

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.

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.

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!

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 Jellyfish using a SAS cable.

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.

Above left is a close-up of the port itself, and above right is a close-up of the cable head.

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 Jellyfish On

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

Powering Down Your Jellyfish

Powering down your Jellyfish is just as simple. Clicking the XT’s power button on the top left of the front panel will initiate shutdown.

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

1, 2. Cache Drive and Boot Drive. 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.

7-10. 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.

16-25. 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.

Installation

Once your 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 Jellyfish Connect app.

https://download.owc.com/jellyfish/connect/

Launching the installer for 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.

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

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

Setup

Under the Setup tab Your Jellyfish will appear in the Discovered section. Click on it to begin the configuration process.

A window will load to confirm your settings. Keep in mind that the 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 Jellyfish in the future.

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

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

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

When toggled on, it will be blue.

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.

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

Now that you’ve connected to the 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 Jellyfish, which is your Jellyfish admin hub. To get to Manager for Jellyfish, open your Connect app, click on the Resources tab, and click Manager for Jellyfish. You can also access Manager for Jellyfish at any time by navigating to jellyfish/ into your web browser. Additionally, you can access Manager for Jellyfish by entering your port IP address into your web browser.

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

Username: main
Password: luma

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.”

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.

When you’ve successfully entered the credentials, your Manager for Jellyfish dashboard will load on your screen.

Make sure to set up your system time on your 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.

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

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.

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

Click on the appropriate time zone.

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

Now that you’ve set up your date and time, let’s explore Manager for Jellyfish. In the upper right corner, you’ll see several icons. Click on the Users and Groups tab.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 Jellyfish user to be an admin. Admin users will have rights to add new users, create new groups, reset passwords, and create/delete shares.

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

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 Jellyfish. Click the checkmark to save your changes.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 Jellyfish. In this section, you’ll learn how to connect your Jellyfish to the Internet and acquaint yourself with our many seamless software integrations.

Connecting Your Jellyfish to the Internet

First, connect one of your Jellyfish ports to your switch. 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.

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 Jellyfish as this will not provide access to your data.

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

Select the port you connected to the switch or router.

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.

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

Click the checkmark in the top right corner to save.

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

Refresh the page.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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