How are you planning to hook up the storage? Many operations like this use Fibre Channel (multiple computers can connect to multiple large storage devices at high speed). I am unaware of any way to get an iMac to talk to Fibre Channel storage, and can't even see what would be possible, since the iMac lacks any kind of expansion slot. Your only real options are FireWire 800 (storage on each computer) or Gigabit Ethernet for NAS, and both top out below 100 MB/s. Can you wait for the Mac Pro refresh? - there's a persistent rumor about a lower-end Mac Pro that will be priced more competitively with the iMac, yet offer viable disk options - even if you don't go with Fibre Channel, a Mac Pro offers you four (arguably six - some people toss hard drives in the optical bays) fast internal storage connections plus slots to add any interface you want (eSATA, SAS,Fibre Channel or whatever) - as opposed to ONE fast connection, which has to be the boot drive, on an iMac. Right now, the Mac Pros aren't price competitive, but that may change.
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Purchasing 36 i7 iMacs (Help me configure a $300,000 lab)
- Thread starter rmbrown09
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Being an Apple ed buyer, I concur call apple and ask for a rep to come and work up the lab proposal, you will be happy with the service they will provide. Apple also has contact with consultant firm(s) who specialize in setting up labs to assist in that aspect.
As for discounts if your are a registered education institution, then yes there are both hardware and Site license options avaliable to you. If you aren't an educational institution, well still ask if there are any discount programs open to you.
Pj
As for discounts if your are a registered education institution, then yes there are both hardware and Site license options avaliable to you. If you aren't an educational institution, well still ask if there are any discount programs open to you.
Pj
Quick Question
I would really appreciate it if someone please answer my question.
I was curious if when you order the Mac's for educational purposes, so your buying them for a lab, do the macs come with Mac OSX pre installed into it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
I would really appreciate it if someone please answer my question.
I was curious if when you order the Mac's for educational purposes, so your buying them for a lab, do the macs come with Mac OSX pre installed into it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Can't you just buy a real server (doesn't have to be Apple brand) and virtualized OSX there, and then purchase the cheapest based iMac models? If you are spending that much money, I will call Apple, talk with their business representatives and negotiate a better price. $2200 for a machine seems too high for a business especially when they only provide a year of support.
Okay thank you so much, i got into a big argument with an instructor about this. he was trying to claim that apple would send out their products and make you install everything. I wanted to show him something he needs to do before next semester starts but he refused to let me use it.. lol
You are in charge of dropping over a quarter of a million dollars on a lab setup and your on MR asking what to order and if RAM is better than more HD space?I can see your boss/co-workers rolling across this post now.... /facepalm
i agree here, most of us on MR are experts on personal usage Macs or very small business Macs (like 4-5 Macs networked together). For a $300K purchase, you'd better consult a company that actually knows something about a 36 Mac lab infrastructure. Large scale Mac labs are nowhere remotely near what a home network of Macs would look like. Even large scale iPad/iPhone deployments in companies are nowhere near the same as our personal iOS devices. Even the military uses iPhones for their ops and I'm sure Apple has removed the cameras for those and has highly customized firmware for those phones. They could even contain special customized hardware as well, nothing you'd see in a retail store...
