Apple Rackmount Event

[AlphaTech]

Re: Re: DDR???

Originally posted by Rocketman
1000 ethernet is only about 4-5 times as fast as 100 in real world.

That has been true with Cat 5e cables since they topped out at about 350Mb for transfer rates. Cat 6 cables (true Cat 6) are starting to come into the market now. The only thing with that, at this time, is that to have a network backbone/infrastructure to support it will be expensive. You will need all gigabit switches and cards in the computers that are going to use it at full speed. Plus, you will need to run all new Cat 6 lines inside the walls. Eventually, we will see it on a large scale, but for now, it just is too expensive to implement.

 

[gjohns01]

Re: Where are the details?

Originally posted by eirik
Motherboard? What's new about it? How fast?

Main memory (DDR), how fast?

Firewire, what flavor?

CPU's replaceable?

Motherboard replaceable?

What flavor of G4?

Nice aggressive pricing for its target market. Bear in mind bitchers ('price too high'), it's not intended for consumers or desktops. It has redundant (?) power supplies, hot-swappable drives, and a variety of electronics to monitor the health of the machine.

Eirik

No redundant power supplies. You typically don't see those in a 1U. Still an excellent machine.

 

[percolate]

Apple mentions "If you’re a creative professional who plans to use Xserve as a rack-mount workstation, " and I'd agree that there are a lot of advantages to the Xserve but there are a couple of problems I'm having in trying to choose a configuration. [Please note at the end I'll mention a couple of advantages, so this isn't a b*tch post.]

First, they don't offer a basic AppleCare 3 year warranty. The cheapest APP offered costs $950. I just want a three year warranty, nothing more.

Second, their video card and PCI slot configuration is confusing. It seems like unless you need a second gigabit ethernet port, you should go with the Radeon 8500 because otherwise you're taking up one of the full size PCI slots. However, looking at their architecture diagram it seems the full size PCI slots share a bus and PCI/AGP slot is on a separate bus. Also, it sounds to me like only the default ATi card can run headless but they don't make it completely clear. Advice?

Last, the server software might be better as an option than a requirement. Don't yell at me - "Creative professionals" don't need a full copy of OS X server. I could see myself using hardware monitoring and eventually using clustering but everything else I've heard sounds pretty much unnecessary.

The Xserve is about perfect for audio/video needs. CD-ROM drive instead of more costly and unnecessary optical drives; built-in space for 4 hard drives which can be hot swapped out. It's rack mount to fit right in with the rest of your gear. More than double the power of the TiBook with about the same convenience, plus support for PCI based a/v hardware solutions, internal hardware monitoring, support for more and faster RAM and 3 firewire ports with one on front. I could see a use for these as tasty headless audio modules. Plus, Xserve has blinkenlights. Whereas PowerBooks are currently a staple of live music, I think you'll see many people moving towards these puppies over time. If the APP wasn't so expensive and I knew which graphics card to go with, I'd probably order one right now.

 

[eric_n_dfw]

Educational Institution Prices...

... are on the Apple store site. Looking at my local elementary school (don't know if they differentiate by city or anything) in Euless, TX prices are:
$2,499
1 GHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache & 2MB L3 cache
 
256MB DDR SDRAM @ 266MHz
60GB Apple Drive Module
CD-ROM drive
ATI Graphics Card
Dual Gigabit Ethernet
Two USB ports
Three FireWire ports
Discounted from $2,999 retail price

$3,499.00
Dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache & 2MB L3 cache
per processor
512MB DDR SDRAM @ 266MHz
60GB Apple Drive Module
CD-ROM drive
ATI Graphics Card
Dual Gigabit Ethernet
Two USB ports
Three FireWire ports
Discounted from $3,999 retail price

$6,824.00
Dual 1 GHz PowerPC G4
256K L2 cache & 2MB L3 cache
per processor
2.0GB DDR SDRAM @ 266MHz
4x120GB Apple Drive Modules
CD-ROM drive
ATI Graphics Card
Dual Gigabit Ethernet
Two USB ports
Three FireWire ports
AppleCare Premium Support Plan
Discounted from $7,799 retail price

$500 off the pre-canned settups / $825 off the "Ultimate" one - not to bad, what do y'all think?

 

[nickgold]

Educational pricing...

Those educational discounts seem even larger than the discounts given on other products. Am I hallucinating? 😕

heheh I can definitely see my next machine being a rack. 😀

 

[Macmaniac]

This is very COOL! I see the future of things to come! It won't be long until the put DDR in the powermacs!

 

[barkmonster]

DDR support with a G4 has been worth waiting for.

The Pentium 4, up until recently only had a 100Mhz FSB, the memory being quad pumped to 400Mhz

The Athlon is 133Mhz FSB with DDR at 266Mhz

I never saw any reason why a similar thing couldn't be done with the G4.

I'm glad apple have come up with a motherboard that we can be proud of, I'm sure it will have quite a large impact on all realtime software once it's on the towers. Photoshop and other non realtime software like seti have really been the only thing the mac's been able to compete with PCs and win at over the past few years, if we really do get something like a dual 1.4Ghz G4 with DDR later in the year I'm sure it could give even an Athlon XP 2000+ a run for it's money for a lot of things. Wouldn't a "let's see how many reverbs we can run in Logic" test be more of an indication of realtime speed than the usual "look how many seconds slower this PC is at photoshop".

Not that I'm suggesting Logic is the only thing people could use, I just think it's a highly optimised package, available on both platforms and it would be a fair test because of it taking full advantage of both SiMD and Dual CPUs on both platforms.

 

[mikedman]

Just for kicks

Just for grins I thought it would be fun to price that rack full o' fun pictured on the apple web site. A rack of Xserve's maxed out with all the trimmings, a sweet support plan, a rack, and a 22" monitor will set you back somewhere around $327,756.00. So if you gots to have your 630 Gigaflops you can start collecting pennies now!

 

[szark]

Xserve ships with 10.1.5

The Xserve PDF Data Sheet (page 6) states that the servers ship with 10.1.5 !!!

All models include rackmounting hardware; Mac OS X Server v10.1.5 with unlimited-client license

Guess we'll be seeing 10.1.5 next month?

 

[tjwett]

I'm psyched...

Anyway. my question is: How would you go about using this as your main machine? Is it able to run regular old OSX? I noticed there is no option to connect an Apple ADC connector. I guess you could get the adapter. I'm really considering getting this thing for my next "desktop" because my educational discount rocks and it would be a nice deal. Is it practical? I do music production, video, graphic and web design.

 

[locovaca]

The P4 has a 100mhz (now becoming 133mhz) bus that transfers data 4 times in a single clock, making it an effective 400/533mhz bus (called QDR, or quad data rate).

The Athlon uses a 100 (older athlons)/133 mhz bus that transfers data 2 times in a single clock, making it an effective 200/266mhz bus (called DDR, or double data rate).

The G4 has a 100/133mhz bus, and transfers data only once in a single clock, keeping it an effective 100/133 mhz bus (called SDR, or single data rate).

The ram has no effect on the bus speed, although generally the base rate of the ram matches the speed of the CPU fsb speed (100 mhz/133 mhz)- when PC133 ram first came out on the PC side (before 133 mhz cpus came out) you had the option to run the memory at 133 mhz and the cpu at 100 mhz, which didn't give you a gain but it gave them something to brag about, I guess. That said, DDR wouldn't make sense for the G4 unless each processor had it's own FSB to the memory controller, meaning that each CPU would have it's own 133 mhz of ram effectively to work with.

 

[mc68k]

Originally posted by locovaca
That said, DDR wouldn't make sense for the G4 unless each processor had it's own FSB to the memory controller, meaning that each CPU would have it's own 133 mhz of ram effectively to work with.

An excellent first post! Welcome to the MR community.

There are two versions of the XServe a single and a dual. So your hypothesis that each CPU has its own 133MHz bus is interesting but doesn't take into account the single processor version.

I think a more plausible hypothesis would be a new chip design my Moto that uses 2 instructions per clock cycle, as stated earlier in this thread (I think).

What I find interesting are these specs for the RAM:

Repeat one or all
— 128MB or 256MB DIMMs (64-bit-wide, 128Mbit technology)
— 512MB DIMMs (64-bit-wide, 256Mbit technology)

I really have to study for my finals or I would do some more research on this. What is the difference between 128Mbit and 256Mbit technology? Does the memory controller need 256Mbit technology for 512MB DIMMS to be utilized? Is there such a thing as 512MB DIMMS that use 128Mbit technology?

I'm new to all this DDR business, since all we've had in the Mac community has been SDR RAM for what seems like centuries. Now that it's on the mac platform, it gives me a reason to research it. 🙂

 

[me hate windows]

sweet server, I just wish I could get 1 for maya.

 

[locovaca]

The mbit is just the size of the individual ram chips. A 512 meg dimm with just 128 mbit chips would have to have 32 chips on it (16 on a side), which would mean it would be a double height dimm (128/8= 8 megabytes per chip, 512/8=32 chips), whereas a 256 mbit chip is double, so half the number of chips required. I don't think I've ever seen a dimm with 16 chips on a side because it would be pretty huge- thus the requirement. If such a dimm did exist (512 with 32 chips), it would probably would work, but the size might not fit in the 1U case.


(thanks a lot- I just found this site about a week ago, and I'm technically just getting my first mac this week... but I've always liked macs, just could never afford one... but that'll all change when my sawtooth g4 comes in... throw in a gf2 mx and watch quartz extreme fly!)

 

[G4scott]

JtheLemur should stop whining...

I don't see why everyone in education is so angry... If you have enough students to justify 500 computers in a school (I know mine doesn't have that many, but I wish it did...), then they must have enough money to justify a $2500 server... In a school with that many clients, there has to be some serious network equipment, like file servers, filtering servers, mail servers, some major switches, firewall boxes, and tons of other stuff, and besides, some flitering services cost up to $16000 a year (or something like that...)

I know that the McAllen Independent School District MISD spent over $40000 taxpayers dollars on some huge HP server that's out of date by now, whose job can eaisly be done by at least 2 xServes and that other RAID thingy... They also have at least 3 42U racks filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of networking equipment, plus that huge HP server. The thing is, that most of these devices are too slow for my school district's network, so they're looking at replacing some of the stuff. For example, a flitering box that can handle the needed bandwidth costs well over $10000

Seriously, schools get tons of taxpayer dollars... But if you're not high enough up on the pecking order, and can't be the one to decide to buy these suckers, then suggest it to your IT personell, but don't complain...

Besides, compared to similar servers, Apple's xServe is cheaper, and has more features (like 4 drive bays). Even if you see this as a pricey computer, think of how long it would last. Even if you just get the base-line model for a school, you'd be able to upgrade it's storage and RAM easily, and it's bandwith in a school environment is more than sufficent.

So... Stop whining. $2500 and $3500 are relatively cheap for what these servers supply, and besides, they'll last for quite a while, especially if you just use them for storage or e-mail like most schools would...

 

[elgruga]

Originally posted by percolate


Last, the server software might be better as an option than a requirement. Don't yell at me - "Creative professionals" don't need a full copy of OS X server. I could see myself using hardware monitoring and eventually using clustering but everything else I've heard sounds pretty much unnecessary.

Well, you have to have an OS on the machine, and OSX Server is quite capable of running Photoshop et al - this is a Server, so it must have the capability to allow clients to connect to it. Thats the definition of a server.

OS X server doesnt look that different from OSX, and it runs the same. Sort of.......

I think we will get one of these for a web server when we finally switch to OSX. Maybe a year from now.

This is a great step forward for Apple - no caveats!

The battle with M$ isnt over yet........hehe!

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by elgruga
The battle with M$ isnt over yet........hehe!

Lets see m$ put out a 1U rackmount server that gets people excited (as Apple's Xserve has). Actually, lets see anyone else put out a 1U server with an unlimited user license version of the OS on it, with two gigabit NIC's in it for the same money, and have as many people drooling over it.

I don't think that will ever happen.

 

[Wry Cooter]

Re: JtheLemur should stop whining...

Originally posted by G4scott


Besides, compared to similar servers, Apple's xServe is cheaper, and has more features (like 4 drive bays). Even if you see this as a pricey computer, think of how long it would last. Even if you just get the base-line model for a school, you'd be able to upgrade it's storage and RAM easily...

What I would really like to know about the Xserve... can you swap out the CPU chips later when something better comes along? Or is Apple going to ask you to drop 3000 clams on them again for a couple of chips?

 

[locovaca]

The battle with M$ isnt over yet........hehe!

I don't really think the battle is with Microsoft. Sure, they have a server OS (not hardware, but let's just ignore that for a second), but most people that get rackmount solutions tend to go towards a unix/linux environment. The biggest caveat of running a unix/linux rackbox is that it requires many skilled people to get it up and running. Sure, it may be fine for a while afterwards, but if it crashes or gets hacked (not often, but something you should be worried about), then you're looking at $$$ for the support (since not any old person can walk up to a CLI and just edit configurations). Just as OSX was designed to do, it takes that reliability and makes it simple enough for a teacher to do. And _THAT_ is who this'll cater to- the people that need the power, but don't want to spend the excessive amount of time learning where httpd.conf is. There is a big market for this- small ISP's, small to medium companies, and now with the economic downfall and layoffs, some bigger organizations that are laying off IT staff may look at this due to it's advantages over a traditional unix box.

The people that run Windows servers won't switch because usually they end up using the active directory and windows network related services, and doing such a large switch would probably cause a lot of services to be loss (that is, unless OSX Server started to integrate some of the NT/2k server services, like what the Samba team is trying to do). However, those that rely on unix boxes or have platform independent needs (like just a web server, etc.) will see this as a good TCO reduction.

 

[mc68k]

Originally posted by locovaca
If such a dimm did exist (512 with 32 chips), it would probably would work, but the size might not fit in the 1U case.

(thanks a lot- I just found this site about a week ago, and I'm technically just getting my first mac this week... but I've always liked macs, just could never afford one... but that'll all change when my sawtooth g4 comes in... throw in a gf2 mx and watch quartz extreme fly!)

I had a DIMM before, stacked with too many chips, bought by the previous owner. I believe it was bought at thechipmercant.com, judging by the markings. I have it right here…32 chips for 64MB…was used in my 7200.

So I guess cr@p like this exists and probably screws up memory controllers— like this one did to mine.

Good to hear on the mac purchase. Good thing it's a sawtooth, because that's the lowest DT that QE supports. I like your posts too. So many newbies have so little to contribute.

I'm not so lucky. I bought a Radeon Mac Edition for like 200+ beans a while ago for my S900, only to find out all that technology is wasted…but I digress. 🙂

 

[peterjhill]

Re: Re: Re: DDR???

Originally posted by AlphaTech


That has been true with Cat 5e cables since they topped out at about 350Mb for transfer rates. Cat 6 cables (true Cat 6) are starting to come into the market now. The only thing with that, at this time, is that to have a network backbone/infrastructure to support it will be expensiv\

On a server, gig is extra nice, for a short run from a server to a server aggregation switch, like a Cisco 6500, with gig uplinks to other distribution switches, once you pile on a bunch of users using 100 mbits/sec fast ethernet, you can saturate a high volume server gig link pretty quickly.

I kind of doubt the 350 mbit/sec rate for the cat 5e. I know i have broken that from my desktop over 5e cable using iperf to test the bandwidth. Of course if you want, you can always use the copper NIC for management, and get the optional fiber gig card. Then you won't run into the emf losses.

An enterprise definitely starts in the core and server block for deploying gigE. We still have a couple thousand users on shared-10 (out of about 25000 outlets I believe).

 

[gopher]

you want services?

Mac OS X server includes the following:

"
Continuously monitored server activity
Mac OS X Server features built-in failure-recovery systems that continuously monitor server activity to detect and recover from breakdowns in essential system services. If a monitored system goes down, Mac OS X Server restarts it automatically. Mac OS X Server also restarts services automatically in the event of a power failure.

Ironclad security
Security Maintaining data security and preventing unauthorized file access is one of your top priorities. We understand. The good news is that with its UNIX file system permissions architecture and modern operating system design, Mac OS X Server supports the latest in data and protocol security. Integrated SSL supports encrypted and authenticated client/server communications, and Secure Shell (SSH2) provides encrypted and authenticated login for secure remote administration from the Terminal application.

The open source advantage
Tomcat. Mac OS X Server also includes QuickTime Streaming Server and WebObjects 5.1, and incorporates the important contributions from the open source community — including the most reliable releases of Apache, Samba, PHP, MySQL, Tomcat and OpenSSL — besides featuring software RAID support for disk striping and disk mirroring for flexible storage configuration, data redundancy and improved disk-read performance.

No per-user streaming charges
QuickTime Streaming Server 4 combines outstanding performance with great economies of scale. A single Xserve can serve up to 4,000 simultaneous streams. If you were on another server platform, that could cost you major bucks. But since QuickTime Streaming Server has no “server tax” — that is, no streaming charge per user — you don’t have to pay extra for additional users."
http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/

Put it simply Xserve ROCKS!

Originally posted by locovaca


I don't really think the battle is with Microsoft. Sure, they have a server OS (not hardware, but let's just ignore that for a second), but most people that get rackmount solutions tend to go towards a unix/linux environment. The biggest caveat of running a unix/linux rackbox is that it requires many skilled people to get it up and running. Sure, it may be fine for a while afterwards, but if it crashes or gets hacked (not often, but something you should be worried about), then you're looking at $$$ for the support (since not any old person can walk up to a CLI and just edit configurations). Just as OSX was designed to do, it takes that reliability and makes it simple enough for a teacher to do. And _THAT_ is who this'll cater to- the people that need the power, but don't want to spend the excessive amount of time learning where httpd.conf is. There is a big market for this- small ISP's, small to medium companies, and now with the economic downfall and layoffs, some bigger organizations that are laying off IT staff may look at this due to it's advantages over a traditional unix box.

The people that run Windows servers won't switch because usually they end up using the active directory and windows network related services, and doing such a large switch would probably cause a lot of services to be loss (that is, unless OSX Server started to integrate some of the NT/2k server services, like what the Samba team is trying to do). However, those that rely on unix boxes or have platform independent needs (like just a web server, etc.) will see this as a good TCO reduction.

 

[shadowfax0]

Now here's a question...the Xserve jsut came out, so....what the hell has Apple been running their website off of? Don't tell me they have a warehouse of G4's sitting there, or do they simply have like 20, and then just some big RAID array for all the media, and then the comps to just take requests and pull up the information...(?) OR do they run SUN or something?

 

[locovaca]

Gopher:

I do not disagree. I guess, I find that many people Microsoft Servers for all the integration they have (with Exchange Server as well), and for them to change would require a complete overhaul, something that takes years to even just upgrade to the new version, let alone implement a different system. That's why this is an attractive option for those that have a unix base already, or who's servers aren't necessarily tied to a microsoft environment.

 

[Wry Cooter]

Originally posted by shadowfax0
Now here's a question...the Xserve jsut came out, so....what the hell has Apple been running their website off of? Don't tell me they have a warehouse of G4's sitting there, or do they simply have like 20, and then just some big RAID array for all the media, and then the comps to just take requests and pull up the information...(?) OR do they run SUN or something?

Actually, I always figured a good deal of it wasn't on site at all, but on whatever Akamai is using for servers.