Analysis of G4 server proto.

[peterjhill]

Are those IDE/ATA or SCSI connectors?

If this board is going into a server, they are going to want to put SCSI connectors on the board. ATA is cheap, SCSI is way fast. (not to mention that ATA slows down if you add more than one drive to a chain.

The superdrive will be connected to an IDE socket, but the raid array will be scsi.

They could put an adaptec pci card in, but why eat a pci slot?

Go configure a Dell server and see what kind of drives they put into their servers if you don't believe me.

 

[peterjhill]

Okay, looking at the picture where strum375 labeled the ports, if that is a scsi connector (and it looks like it could be) --

Look where the PCI slots are, now look at the external ports, that must be the back. So looking at the back of the case, where the PCI cards are will need to be indented. That will actually be kind of nice, so if you have a fat connector, like the video connector, the rigid part will be recessed, so you will be able put the back of the box close to a wall or rack access panel.

Now the SCSI connector is going to be on the left hand side of the board looking at it from the front. Where are they going to put their RAID array? It is a funny place to put the SCSI connector if it is going into a rack. Why mount it sideways?

I don't see onboard video, so they are going with an agp video card. Servers really don't need fancy agp video. The same system they are putting in the new TiBooks would be more than adequate for a server.

So I am not convinced that this is the board for the new iRack, or what ever they will call it.