G5 Xserve in January?

MacRumors · Dec 30, 2003

According to Appleinsider, pre-production PowerPC G5 based Xserves have successfully undergone quality assurance testing earlier this week.

Appleinsider had previously reported Xserve G5s as imminent in October, but according to today's report, Apple had run against some unsatisfactory QA results on a batch of G5 Xserves in late November.

Expectations again place the Xserve G5 release as "imminent" at or soon after MacWorld Expo with delivery not until February.

Appleinsider offers no new details on specs or form factor for the revised Xserve. Very few reliable details on the upcoming Xserves have emerged. ThinkSecret had hinted at a 3U enclosure was being considered, while Appleinsider posted unconfirmed hints of a revised 1U case.

The Xserve was last updated in February of 2003 to Dual 1.33GHz G4s.

iChan · Dec 30, 2003

i look forward to seeing these... and other new stuff in jan

dho · Dec 30, 2003

Good news that they are nearing completion. I am interested as to what kind of speed the will be able to get in those servers.

also, will they still be 1u?

NusuniAdmin · Dec 30, 2003

*crosses fingers*

Come on dual 2.4 ghz xserve, come on baby!

Freg3000 · Dec 30, 2003

Wow, almost a year since upgrades. I didn't think it was that long. I even remember the "slogan" that went with their introductions:

We mean business.

brianwells · Dec 30, 2003

Xserve RAID improvements?

At work we'd like to see Apple announce some improvements for the Xserve RAID.

In particular, it would be good if Apple released SAN software similar to CharisMac's FibreShare.

We can only wish...

x86isslow · Dec 30, 2003

this can only be good. wonder what the top speed will be? c'mon- 2.6ghz!!

fatbarstard · Dec 30, 2003

Oh gooody

The servers have been long overdue for an upgrade/refresh... so it should be a good one...

Hopefully we will see a dual processor X-Serve's running at 2.6GHz... making it like a G5 tower..

Have it tall or have it flat, either way its still a great Mac...

Sound of iron hitting your correspondent from irate reader becuase of awful rhyme heard throughout message board.... https://forums.macrumors.com/newreply.php?s=&action=newreply&threadid=53129#

idkew · Dec 30, 2003

Re: Oh gooody

Originally posted by fatbarstard
Have it tall or have it flat, either way its still a great Mac...

nice.

yamabushi · Dec 30, 2003

Redundant power supplies would be a welcome improvement.

ltgator333 · Dec 30, 2003

Yeah I think this is really a good thing as it has been ages since Xserves have been updated... I almost forgot they even exsisted really... lol...
But the other good thing that MAY come from this is this would be Apple's second go at making a G5 motherboard.. they're may be some improvements made that if made would probably find they're way into the PowerMac line as well, such as how when Apple first came out with the Xserve if I remember correctly they came up with a whole new chipset that quickly found it's way into the Pmacs...

olwynbag · Dec 30, 2003

90nm pp970fx

the g5 xserve might be waiting for the next 970fx chip from IBM.
Wonder since it's 90nm if it will be in the powerbooks also. Just a guess.

wizard · Dec 30, 2003

OR Apple could take the XSeres in an entirely differrent direction than the G5. This could be a possibility as ideally they will want to support more than 2X SMP.

Frankly I don't have a need for a server right now, what would really rock my boat would be a RAID drive that is a littel more economical than the current unit. Not that the XServe RAID has any problems but it would be nice to have the security of RAID in a lower cost system. In other words a storage server for an Ethernet lan.

Dave

Originally posted by ltgator333
Yeah I think this is really a good thing as it has been ages since Xserves have been updated... I almost forgot they even exsisted really... lol...
But the other good thing that MAY come from this is this would be Apple's second go at making a G5 motherboard.. they're may be some improvements made that if made would probably find they're way into the PowerMac line as well, such as how when Apple first came out with the Xserve if I remember correctly they came up with a whole new chipset that quickly found it's way into the Pmacs...

~Shard~ · Dec 30, 2003

The G5 xServes are LONG overdue - I don't know if we'll see them as early at MWSF, but they will no doubt be released on some Tuesday in the near future.

Can't wait for the news - Apple needs to keep the xServes current and attractive to buyers, and a year is far too long between updates. Bring it on Apple!

marco114 · Dec 31, 2003

Multi-Processor XServes

I'm hoping Apple's looking at going into the Enterprise Market...

We need:

- 4 G5 Processors (4 x 2.4GHZ)
- 4 drive bays minimum
- 8GB Ram minimum
- FibreChannel or similar
- 1GB Ethernet
- A Modem
- 3-4 U Enclosure

I'd really like the ability to use my own drives.

I'll buy one today! Maybe 2.

rdowns · Dec 31, 2003

Re: Multi-Processor XServes

Originally posted by marco114
I'm hoping Apple's looking at going into the Enterprise Market...

We need:

- 4 G5 Processors (4 x 2.4GHZ)
- 4 drive bays minimum
- 8GB Ram minimum
- FibreChannel or similar
- 1GB Ethernet
- A Modem
- 3-4 U Enclosure

I'd really like the ability to use my own drives.

I'll buy one today! Maybe 2.

Even though server vendors gauge you on HD prices, better to stick with their drives to avoid finger pointing when the inevitable problems occur.

MacsRgr8 · Dec 31, 2003

Originally posted by yamabushi
Redundant power supplies would be a welcome improvement.

Absolutely

AidenShaw · Dec 31, 2003

ECC memory

Originally posted by yamabushi
Redundant power supplies would be a welcome improvement.

Support for ECC memory would be a bigger improvement.

When a power supply fails, it's usually pretty easy to diagnose

When memory gets a single bit error - you get the wrong answer, or a random failure or crash. Very nasty to diagnose....

visor · Dec 31, 2003

they'll be

anounced in mid january, available at the end of february. It'll be g5's, two of them whith the same system architecture as the current pm's.
Remains to be seen if it will be new g5's with 90nm die's

tortoise · Dec 31, 2003

Re: Multi-Processor XServes

Originally posted by marco114
I'm hoping Apple's looking at going into the Enterprise Market...

We need:

- 4 G5 Processors (4 x 2.4GHZ)
- 8GB Ram minimum

Oh yeah, and a 64-bit operating system so that we could actually USE all that RAM would be nice too. Lots of server apps need more than 4Gb per process these days.

Here is to hoping that Apple has the wisdom to put a real 64-bit OS in their server products if not in their workstation products.

ColdZero · Dec 31, 2003

There is support to access that extra ram in 10.3. The applications need to be recompiled with 64 bit support to access it directly. Otherwise a 32bit application will be limited to 4gb of ram. The OS support is there, while it isn't all 64 bit, it is there. Applications now need to access those extra features in 10.3. I have a feeling this is how it will be for a while with Apple. Things are very easy for them right now, they have 1 OS for workstations, consumers and servers. They all run the same software and all use the same updates. Making 2 different OS X's would be a pain in the neck for Apple. I think that we will see 32 bit OS's with 64 bit extensions for a long time.

wchamlet · Dec 31, 2003

I thought OS X and OS X server were different? I know they have different features, like OS X server has all of the administration and networking tools, but I'm not too sure if the actual OS is that much different. Someone care to fill me in?

ColdZero · Dec 31, 2003

They really aren't that different at all. Both OS X and OS X Server use the same OS X stuff underneith. Both OS X and Server have stuff to be a file server, DHCP server, firewall, print server, etc. OS X Server is just beefier when it comes to the preinstalled server apps. You can even take a basic OS X installation and upgrade it to server by just installing those server apps from the 2nd Server CD.

tortoise · Dec 31, 2003

>4Gb of RAM does not mean the OS is 64-bit.

Originally posted by ColdZero
There is support to access that extra ram in 10.3. The applications need to be recompiled with 64 bit support to access it directly. Otherwise a 32bit application will be limited to 4gb of ram.

Common misconception. The compiler and ABI only support IP32/L64 modes at best. Until there is a pure LP64 mode, all applications are limited to 4Gb of RAM. OSX 10.3 processes only support 32-bit pointers, so it is impossible to address 64-bit addresses. There is no special mode or way to make this not the case (other than running Linux ;-)

What Apple is calling "64-bit memory" is really just something analogous to PAE memory models common on other 32-bit architectures. Intel chips have supported this kind of >4Gb physical memory support for many, many years. While it allows you to have more than 4Gb of physical memory in a machine, it does not allow any process to use more than 4Gb of that physical RAM, and is therefore nearly useless as a feature.

And in fact, Apple has not announced any plans as to when they will eventually support 64-bit memory models in OSX. Which defeats most of the point of having a 64-bit machine IMO.

AidenShaw · Dec 31, 2003

Big physical memory is quite useful

Originally posted by tortoise
While it allows you to have more than 4Gb of physical memory in a machine, it does not allow any process to use more than 4Gb of that physical RAM, and is therefore nearly useless as a feature.

I have a number of 2-way to 8-way Intel servers with more than 4 GiB of RAM, and it definitely far from useless.

If you're running 4 or 5 jobs, each using 2 to 3 GiB of RAM on a quad Xeon - you're very happy that you've stuck 16 GiB of RAM in the box, and that Windows or Linux is using all of it!

Now, that much memory on a single-user workstation is less useful, but for a server running several big jobs it is quite handy.

(And of course, on an Intel server it is ECC memory, so when one bit of the 128 Gib has a random error it's fixed and logged....)

G5 Xserve in January?

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