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3U Xserve?
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Hmm. So in 2U you can have two separate dual-processor machines (with redundant power supplies, four network ports, duplicate fiber channel cards, two graphic cards, et cetera) but if you try to remove the middle piece of metal and delete the extra network and graphics cards, it won't fit? Or would get too hot? 'Scuse me?
Personally, I'd love to see a 2U 4-way that did have redundant power supplies. Dual graphics boards I could live without, though... Still, I wouldn't expect this to replace the 1U two-way box, just add to it as another machine option. That would make a fantastic midrange server, if it could come in somewhere around the $7,500 mark. In my field, there's substantial need for boxen around the 4-modern-processor size, with rapidly diminishing need above and below that point (the exceptions tending to cluster around a 32-way level).
That would put a good-sized database server with, say 1TB of usable space on a dedicated XServe RAID available well under $20,000 - even after AppleCare and lots of extra memory. And that's a very appealing price point. Using embedded licensing, that's still under $30,000 including necessary Oracle costs. That's a good deal no matter how you slice it.
-Richard
Bump...
While this thead's title topic has been answered long long ago. The second topic that imerged about water cooling has only just reciently been answered by apple.
Just found it interesting reading over posts from page two onward, in light of recient developments.
While this thead's title topic has been answered long long ago. The second topic that imerged about water cooling has only just reciently been answered by apple.
Just found it interesting reading over posts from page two onward, in light of recient developments.
Now I must say I feel a bit dirty replying to a thread this old, not to mention a thread where the last poster appears to have been banned, but I think that this quad Opteron in 1U is interesting:
http://www.appro.com/product/server_1142h.asp
Certainly settles the arguement about how much can be stuffed into what space.
http://www.appro.com/product/server_1142h.asp
Certainly settles the arguement about how much can be stuffed into what space.
missed point
Lets piece all the pictures together; and then add some views from the enterprise front line. People are focussing on render farms and video on this multiprocessing dreamfest. The majority of high end servers of this world arent doing video manipulation; they are running the world; high end database servers cost companies 50k at the entry level. Now if only there were a large scalable high end database for os/x - oh wait oracle are likely to launch one at wwdc; maybe we have a high end server coming for running ERP and other large databae tools. A 1u server will not be able to cope with that demand; and clustering is not as efficient as smp (at least not in sql worlds.) The performance benefit of the processor should make apps run quicker especially if oracle do 64bit) the kit is a nice alternative to the IBM black i see day in day out too ... What sort of kit am i talking about though
The Wintel server I specced for my server room was
IBM X365 4 x xeon 3.2ghz, 16gb ram, fibre channel, 4 x 36 15k scsi raid 10 for operating system
IBM Fastt SAN + 120 x 76.4 gb 15k disks raid 10
which was built as a failover cluster ( so two of these less the san) running sql server enterprise. The total cost was over 100k before i looked at app servers (and paying for my pieces of paper to run the server - damned licensing.
I am slightly locked into sql server but not greatly an oracle system running on apple kit would be of great interest if it were cheaper than wintel. I have a concern of the performance of the IBM san's as they are on sata disks not scsi; this is partly fear of the unknown; but also knowledge that SCSI disk lives are pretty much written in stone; and the disks themselves are way quicker, have more cache.
The caveat is for my data centre is this: is the support is there? Support is something IBM/ compaq et al are fantastic at; i have had disks arrive in a taxi at 2am (followed not too distantly by an engineer) to meet their support agreement; and it only costs 7-800 pounds for 3 years. Apple support is europe is pathetic (mail everything back to europe type of support); which immediately turns me off the idea.
Maybe an apple database server is a bad idea on reflection ...
Lets piece all the pictures together; and then add some views from the enterprise front line. People are focussing on render farms and video on this multiprocessing dreamfest. The majority of high end servers of this world arent doing video manipulation; they are running the world; high end database servers cost companies 50k at the entry level. Now if only there were a large scalable high end database for os/x - oh wait oracle are likely to launch one at wwdc; maybe we have a high end server coming for running ERP and other large databae tools. A 1u server will not be able to cope with that demand; and clustering is not as efficient as smp (at least not in sql worlds.) The performance benefit of the processor should make apps run quicker especially if oracle do 64bit) the kit is a nice alternative to the IBM black i see day in day out too ... What sort of kit am i talking about though
The Wintel server I specced for my server room was
IBM X365 4 x xeon 3.2ghz, 16gb ram, fibre channel, 4 x 36 15k scsi raid 10 for operating system
IBM Fastt SAN + 120 x 76.4 gb 15k disks raid 10
which was built as a failover cluster ( so two of these less the san) running sql server enterprise. The total cost was over 100k before i looked at app servers (and paying for my pieces of paper to run the server - damned licensing.
I am slightly locked into sql server but not greatly an oracle system running on apple kit would be of great interest if it were cheaper than wintel. I have a concern of the performance of the IBM san's as they are on sata disks not scsi; this is partly fear of the unknown; but also knowledge that SCSI disk lives are pretty much written in stone; and the disks themselves are way quicker, have more cache.
The caveat is for my data centre is this: is the support is there? Support is something IBM/ compaq et al are fantastic at; i have had disks arrive in a taxi at 2am (followed not too distantly by an engineer) to meet their support agreement; and it only costs 7-800 pounds for 3 years. Apple support is europe is pathetic (mail everything back to europe type of support); which immediately turns me off the idea.
Maybe an apple database server is a bad idea on reflection ...
Sun Baked said:
Actually Apple does use thermal paste between the CPUs and the heat sinks...
But... The CPU boards in the xserve are not user serviceable...
Only the fans, power supply, video card, and mother board are user servicable
If the CPU boards are bad the whole server has to be sent back for repair..
mustang_dvs said:
Actually, the new G5 Xserves are incredibly quiet. I'd estimate 1/3 that of the old G4 Xserve.
HERE'S my setup. The three bottom units are G4's. But all that sound from the servers pales in comparison to the rear door fan unit. Three fans controlled by a temp sensor, when going full-bore, it's truly brain-numbingly loud.
Les Kern said:
You are right... The Xerve G5 is quieter than the Xserve G4...
But when you have 1500 of em they do get rather noisy
