Apple Developing Narrower, Rackmountable Mac Pro Prototypes?

[Umbongo]

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/21/apple-developing-narrower-rackmountable-mac-pro-prototypes/

It makes a lot of sense. Quietly cooling two CPUs, a high-end GPU, 8 DIMMs and multiple drives in such a form factor makes me a little dubious. That and it seems pure hearsay on the part of 9 to 5 mac.

Mods please don't lock this, discussion of Mac Pro related articles in the main news section is really hard to have as 90% of the posts are by people who have little interest or knowledge in the topic.

 

[jowie]

I would hazard a guess that the thinner facade suggests a lack of optical media drives, or if it does have one, a vertical slot-loader. But I think what with flash drive or Internet distribution, optical media drives aren't really needed any more, even on a Pro machine.

My 2 cents!

 

[phlavor]

I would hazard a guess that the thinner facade suggests a lack of optical media drives, or if it does have one, a vertical slot-loader. But I think what with flash drive or Internet distribution, optical media drives aren't really needed any more, even on a Pro machine.

If they made the MacBook Air External Superdrive bootable and compatible with any computer I would welcome the elimination of internal optical drives.

 

[goMac]

Yet another sign Apple is going to kill the Mac Pro.

You'll see! With Final Cut Pro on it's deathbed there is no way the Mac Pro is sticking around!

/s

 

[portishead]

Just what I want. iMac is nice, but I'd rather have the power of a tower. It's just too bulky. Cut the size in half, and throw a couple thunderbolt ports on it. Add a couple SSD slots, and lose the superdrive & PCIe slots. If you want something nice without wires, get an iMac. Ideally, I'd want something between an iMac and Mac Pro, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

 

[Old Muley]

Could this become the fabled "headless iMac"?

 

[toddybody]

Totally awesome...now enable windows based (6970) graphics cards and were in business!

 

[CIA]

Add a couple SSD slots, and lose the superdrive & PCIe slots.

Could this become the fabled "headless iMac"?

I need:
8 Internal Bays.
More PCIe Slots.
Thunderbolt.
Keep Dual Optical Bays.
More Ram Slots.
Built in Fibre Channel (This is a stretch)
That should be a MacPro. What you guys want is that magic headless iMac. I want more, not less.
Working in Video I need the most horsepower possible. 32 Cores would be nice.

At home I can live with my iMac, but editing on it is a pain. A MiniMacPro might work there, but it will still cost 2k and people will bitch.
For work I can justify spending $8,000 on a high powered PRO machine.

 

[coder12]

Very interesting. This is very plausible because of Lenovo has the C20 workstation (which I picked out for myself at my work):

http://news.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/10381/637217.html

The ThinkStation is 3U rackmountable, with the CD tray vertical for the thinner chassis. Fits full-length, full-height PCIe (video) cards. They called it the "world's smallest dual CPU workstation" so Apple could definitely match it for the Mac Pro.

I'd really like to get a Mac Pro, so this would be perfect. The size is nice though honestly I don't really see much need for rackmounting--do companies use these in a server room with a KVM or thin client or something?Image

We use them in our high school, or at least... we USED to use them...

edit: Alternatively, this reminded me that I have a powermac G4 begging to be turned into a mailbox...

 

[mdriftmeyer]

I don't see this replacing the Mac Pro Tower. I see it as another solution within the Mac Pro family aimed at the Final Cut Pro Market where the use of several 3U Form Factor Systems would be used for Distributed Compiling/Rendering, etc.

It would be clearly also targeted for Engineering, Medical, Bio-sciences, etc where using OpenCL and GCD in their apps would provide a huge collection of streams/cores to leverage.

 

[apolloa]

You know, you would have to say 'About friggin time APPLE!!'

Interesting idea for design though, tower case and rack mountable, can see that being very popular

 

[Umbongo]

I don't see this replacing the Mac Pro Tower. I see it as another solution within the Mac Pro family aimed at the Final Cut Pro Market where the use of several 3U Form Factor Systems would be used for Distributed Compiling/Rendering, etc.

It would be clearly also targeted for Engineering, Medical, Bio-sciences, etc where using OpenCL and GCD in their apps would provide a huge collection of streams/cores to leverage.

The Xserve was pretty much another solution too. Same hardware different form factor.

 

[ValSalva]

Good bye expandability, hello cooling issues!

Seriously, why not just keep the xserve and leave the MP alone? Where are we supposed to stuff our upgrades into such a small form factor? Sounds really stupid.

Agreed. The Mac Pro case has been perfected over years and doesn't look at all dated. The more Apple has to pour R&D into a small new case with almost certain version 1 cooling issues, the more likely prices will continue to rise.

 

[SilianRail]

Agreed. The Mac Pro case has been perfected over years and doesn't look at all dated. The more Apple has to pour R&D into a small new case with almost certain version 1 cooling issues, the more likely prices will continue to rise.

It would save money with the need for less raw materials.

 

[apolloa]

Agreed. The Mac Pro case has been perfected over years and doesn't look at all dated. The more Apple has to pour R&D into a small new case with almost certain version 1 cooling issues, the more likely prices will continue to rise.

IMO the Mac Pro looks like an old granny these day's. It's in dire need of a refresh and looks totally out of line when compared to the rest of Apples range. And it's interesting to think that Apple is incapable of properly re-designing the computer because that's what you are saying effectively.

 

[JesterJJZ]

I need:
8 Internal Bays.
More PCIe Slots.
Thunderbolt.
Keep Dual Optical Bays.
More Ram Slots.
Built in Fibre Channel (This is a stretch)
That should be a MacPro. What you guys want is that magic headless iMac. I want more, not less.
Working in Video I need the most horsepower possible. 32 Cores would be nice.

At home I can live with my iMac, but editing on it is a pain. A MiniMacPro might work there, but it will still cost 2k and people will bitch.
For work I can justify spending $8,000 on a high powered PRO machine.

What he said...

 

[zephonic]

Here's a quick scale / mockup

Nice! but isn't that 2U rather than 3?

I would imagine the rack ears to be optional so that you can still put it on your desk as a tower (or horizontally). Fingers crossed for a cheaper base-model, but not holding my breath.

Smaller is better. Hotter and noisier is not. Hope they keep 'em cool and quiet.

 

[MacFly123]

FINALLY some Mac Pro updates!

Very interesting....

This does sound logical to me, its a combination of the lines and i am sure would make it convenient for sound and media pro's whom also have other rack equipment like massive disk arrays and audio equipment(them hings with blinkie lights in sound studios ).

agreed, hopefully an update with the new FCP X

Exactly! Please let this all come out at the same time so I can buy a completely new setup with the new Final Cut Studio and Lion!

Here's a quick scale / mockup

Please leave the dual super drives Apple! We pros still need those to author DVDs!

 

[ValSalva]

IMO the Mac Pro looks like an old granny these day's. It's in dire need of a refresh and looks totally out of line when compared to the rest of Apples range. And it's interesting to think that Apple is incapable of properly re-designing the computer because that's what you are saying effectively.

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder With the quality control of Apple these days my confidence in them being able to design such a small case with such high powered processors without cooling problems is low.

It would save money with the need for less raw materials.

If there was 1/2 the amount of raw materials in the case can you see the price going down by any more than a few dollars? Isn't most of the cost of a Mac Pro the components?

 

[Ryth]

I need:
8 Internal Bays.
More PCIe Slots.
Thunderbolt.
Keep Dual Optical Bays.
More Ram Slots.
Built in Fibre Channel (This is a stretch)
That should be a MacPro. What you guys want is that magic headless iMac. I want more, not less.
Working in Video I need the most horsepower possible. 32 Cores would be nice.

At home I can live with my iMac, but editing on it is a pain. A MiniMacPro might work there, but it will still cost 2k and people will bitch.
For work I can justify spending $8,000 on a high powered PRO machine.

I want to know what type of video you are doing because we sure don't need that and we do high end video editing for National Geographic/Discovery/Smithsonian.

Unless you are doing Hollywood stuff, I see no need for half the stuff you listed.

More internals and PCIE slots? For what? Almost all of our clients are delivering tapeless now and on externals. Dual optical bays? Seriously? Fibre is a must if you are in a post house.

Please leave the dual super drives Apple! We pros still need those to author DVDs!

Seriously? We also do full DVD high end hollywood type authoring at my facility (have been for 10+ Years) and Blu-Ray authoring and we have no need for internal optical super drives.

You guys seriously need to unhinge yourselves from those internal drives...lol

 

[mdriftmeyer]

The Xserve was pretty much another solution too. Same hardware different form factor.

Another solution that didn't serve as a GPGPU Render Farm.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

It would save money with the need for less raw materials.

It would save very little money in material costs for the overall market. They don't have 2 options for a Workstation.

This would be their section option.

 

[z3r0]

Reducing the Mac Pro's size is a huge step backwards! It will reduce space for storage, ram, heat fans, cpu, heat sinks, PCI-X/gpu slots, and optical drives!

The only thing that will increase is HEAT! That will lead to reliability problems as more stress will be put on internal components with the increase in HEAT!

Not to mention if you do plan on using a Mac Pro as a server, redundant power supplies are a must! That means more space is needed!

What about raid cards and gpu's? Will they need to be redesigned to fit in the Mac Pro? Please don't tell me Apple will put in an integrated Intel GPU that would epitome of stupid! The Mac Pro is a workhorse! A beast! If anything go bigger!

Apple should just apologize and release a new Xserve!

That or make a deal with Oracle to get Lion Server on Sun Fire servers. Another option is to open source/port their server software to FreeBSD!

 

[tpavur]

Yet another sign Apple is going to kill the Mac Pro.

You'll see! With Final Cut Pro on it's deathbed there is no way the Mac Pro is sticking around!

/s

doubtful, this is a key switcher market... it would be crazy to axe the very thing that will continue to switch the PC builders/gamers over the next 5 years... this is a key ingredient to apple taking the industry over with time.

 

[ChrisA]

I hope this is true because I'd like to replace my going-on 4 year-old PC with a Mac Pro at some point, but the current case just won't fit in the IKEA wardrobe I'm using as a workstation. It sounds like this new Mac Pro would be smaller than my existing PC. Yea Apple!

Replacing the desk make add 5% to the total cost of the new computer