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Hardware Apple Launches New Xserve Servers
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - August 7, 2006 1:29 PM

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27 comment(s) - last by Hare.. on Aug 14 at 4:01 AM

Apple completes its Intel transition

Following a string of new announcements today by Apple, the company has completed its Intel processor transition by announcing a new line of Xserve servers. Based on the same elegant 1U chassis, the new Xserves come similarly equipped to their desktop Mac Pro counterparts. The new servers are based on new dual-core Xeon DP processors and each Xserve will ship with two processors.

Apple says that the new servers will be capable of storing up to 5TB and are equipped with new redundant power supplies. The chassis also contains more space. According to Apple the new servers will start at a price of $2999, which Apple says is roughly $300 less than a comparable 1U server from Dell.

Starting configuration is:

Two Xeon DP processors starting at 2.6GHz
1GB of RAM
250GB HD

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a Gig

By mendocinosummit on 8/7/2006 1:37:11 PM , Rating: 1

Isn't a gig for two procs like having 256 MB for XP SP2?

RE: a Gig

By AstroCreep on 8/7/2006 1:53:38 PM , Rating: 2

Merely the base config, my friend.
Besides, it's quite common to purchase a ProLiant from a VAR like CDW that only has 1GB as a base.
It's more common than you think.

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RE: a Gig

By mendocinosummit on 8/7/2006 4:50:06 PM , Rating: 2

I realize that it was a starting point, but I was just wondering how crappy it would perform.

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RE: a Gig

By melgross on 8/8/2006 1:38:11 AM , Rating: 2

The amount of RAM has nothing to do with the number of processors being used.

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RE: a Gig

By bunnyfubbles on 8/7/2006 3:12:34 PM , Rating: 3

"starting at 2.6GHz"...

they should also say "starting at 1GB"

Apple, like many MANY others, tends to put in a ridiculously low ammount of ram as a starting base - obviously hoping you'll be lazy and go with their upgrade path where they stick it to you and over charge for additional ram - when its almost always cheaper to buy ram from a 3rd party and uprgrade it yourself.

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RE: a Gig

By MrDiSante on 8/7/2006 8:28:27 PM , Rating: 2

I've got a machine with 256 megs of RAM and a 550 mhz processor that runs XP SP2 just fine.

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RE: a Gig

By mendocinosummit on 8/7/2006 10:42:34 PM , Rating: 2

Machines that I have built for SP1 with 256 MB of RAM run alot smoother, start up faster, and better mulitasking after I upgraded them to 512. I bet your proc is so slow that the RAM is no the bottleneck. With a 2.6 GHZ proc the bottleneck would be the ram and why waste the money on even 512.

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RE: a Gig

By tuteja1986 on 8/8/2006 8:10:46 AM , Rating: 2

these server are over priced ;( Who will buy these server and MAC OS ain't so great Server OS.

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RE: a Gig

By Hare on 8/14/2006 4:01:47 AM , Rating: 2

Yeah. You can just grab parts from newegg and build a server yourself for 1000$ ::rolleyes. Mac OS ain't so great server os? What are you talking about? It's a damn good server os (Unix, freebsd services, apache, mysql etc). Also supports distributed computing, xGrid, etc etc. It seems you don't really know enough about Apple hardware or software to make those claims.

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Flashback

By Griswold on 8/7/2006 2:57:48 PM , Rating: 2

Anyone remember that AT article about apples servers? The hardware was never the problem... doubt that anything changed.

RE: Flashback

By CU on 8/7/2006 3:29:07 PM , Rating: 2

True, OSX does have its problems.

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RE: Flashback

By Pirks on 8/7/2006 3:37:41 PM , Rating: 1

time to ask anand to redo that famous review, that'd be a nice long nail up apple's butt... maybe.

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RE: Flashback

By akugami on 8/7/2006 3:39:36 PM , Rating: 2

The MacOS has always been a better consumer OS than an industrial OS. With Apple's superior design, the MacOS has traditionally had an edge in the OS department though since WinXP, this has largely been evened out. However, Apple needs to make fundamental changes to the underpinnings of it's OS if it really wants to compete on the server front.

Nothing new here basically. Apple needs to enhance it's product if it wishes to enlarge it's market. Especially with the coming of Vista. While so many features of Vista has been cut off, it's likely they will be put in at a later date a year or two after the release of Vista. With Vista having a ton of rewritten code that is more security conscious and with more up to date technology as the underpinnings for Vista, Apple really needs to get on the ball and rework it's OS.

I've long been an Apple supporter though I haven't owned a Mac in over 10 years. I hope they survive but I vote with my money. If the product is good but not good enough for the price premium, I ain't buying.

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RE: Flashback

By michael2k on 8/7/2006 5:14:25 PM , Rating: 2

The only fundamental change to the OS I thought Apple needed to fix had to do with threads and such, to speed up server performance. There is really nothing else for Apple to do regarding "rework it's OS".

OS X already has:
1) Next generation graphic subsystem (5 years old now) with 3D acceleration, compositing, etc
2) Next generation search (will be nearly 2 years old with Leopard)
3) Good security design (though of course it can be improved further)

OS X will get, with Leopard:
1) Automatic backup and easy restore
2) Integrated Video over IP with up to 7 people, desktop sharing with video walkthrough, video conferencing
3) Additional developer tools (to catch up to Microsoft)

What else should Apple be addressing, other than kernel level improvements?

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RE: Flashback

By glennpratt on 8/7/2006 11:16:52 PM , Rating: 2

Hrmm, short of good security, which is mostly BSD and very little Apple, none of those features are targeted for servers.

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RE: Flashback

By melgross on 8/8/2006 1:40:47 AM , Rating: 2

The only problem the OS had was in transaction processing. That's rather specialized. It's used for some pretty heavy processing otherwise.

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No RAID?

By Suomynona on 8/7/2006 3:50:46 PM , Rating: 2

I'm surpised that there is no mention of RAID. How can you have any type of server without some type of RAID?

RE: No RAID?

By michael2k on 8/7/2006 4:04:58 PM , Rating: 2

You mean the XServe RAID?
http://www.apple.com/xserve/raid/

The XServe is mostly either a compute server (CPU+RAM) or simple file server (CPU+HDD). The XServe RAID is for HUGE storage.

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RE: No RAID?

By peternelson on 8/7/2006 6:25:18 PM , Rating: 2

I hope the xserve includes an ESATA port.

If it had that, and the option for Fiberchannel and/or Serial attached SCSI (SAS) that would be absolutely fine.

Also gigabit ethernet ports can access external storage over LAN using the iSCSI protocol.

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RE: No RAID?

By plinden on 8/7/2006 10:48:05 PM , Rating: 2

Not so sure about eSATA (but the drives are hot-swapable). From the Apple store XServe webpage:

quote:
Configurable Options

Dual-Core Intel Xeon speeds:

• 2.0GHz
• 2.66GHz
• 3.0GHz

Storage options:

• 7200-rpm SATA drives: 80GB with 8MB cache, 750GB with 16MB cache
• 15,000-rpm SAS drives: 73GB with 16MB cache, 300GB with 16MB cache

Memory options:

• Up to 32GB RAM via 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB FB-DIMMs

Expansion card options:

• Fibre Channel PCI Express
• Dual-Channel Ultra320 SCSI PCI-X
• Dual-Channel Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
• ATI Radeon X1300 with 256MB SDRAM and dual-link DVI

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RE: No RAID?

By JeffDM on 8/7/2006 9:51:32 PM , Rating: 2

Mac OS can do software RAID 0 and 1 just fine. They do offer a hardware RAID controller (says PCI) for the XServe G5, I wonder if they will update it for PCIe.

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RE: No RAID?

By melgross on 8/8/2006 1:43:08 AM , Rating: 2

There's is built-in software raid in OS X. No level 5 though, unless 10.5 adds that as well.

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Support for Windows

By pissupoosa on 8/7/2006 11:27:55 PM , Rating: 2

No one has commented on the compatibility with windows.. Since these macs are using Xeon processors, is it worthwhile to invest in a system like this for use with 3D applications such as 3DSMax

RE: Support for Windows

By nerdye on 8/8/2006 12:44:17 AM , Rating: 2

Well correct me if I'm wrong but arent all intel x86 based mac's compatable with boot camp? That being said I would love to slap an x1900xtx into a the new mac pro, well if I had 10,000$ to blow that is =)

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