Do you even know what a server is? It's not supposed to be a status symbol moron.
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Sonnet Announces Mac Pro 4U Rackmount Enclosure and Expansion Chassis
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Do you even know what a server is? It's not supposed to be a status symbol moron.
It's just my opinion, but still better looking than the racks full of HP and Dell gear we have.
Only rack equipment I like the look of is BigIP gear, but, racks are not really meant to be works of art either
.1) Enterprise loves their platform and wants desperately to adopt it.
2) Enterprise's only needs are industry-standard refresh cycles plus the ability to add storage and cards as needs grow and change.
Apple's response:
1) Delay refreshes by oh, say, a year or whatever. Don't say a word about it; just offer very old hardware for sale at premium prices.
2) Rearchitect the platform to meet a need for unit compactness that never existed, while simultaneously choosing the only shape (vertical cylinder) that completely prevents high-density installations. Even Mac Minis can be stacked at 100x the performance per square foot.
3) Also eliminate the only thing that enterprise *does* need which is the ability to stick drives and cards in the box without thousands of dollars in needless, performance-reducing external enclosures.
And yet despite the continuous stream of raised middle fingers from Apple, the market is still responding by shoehorning and rigging it back into a *bigger* enclosure that you can at least store at greater density than ~2 CPUs per square foot. (!!)
It wouldn't surprise me if Apple's next move was to post "Screw You, Enterprise. We hate your guts and want to sleep with your girlfriend." on their home page and then put a video of them crushing all remaining cylinder mac pros with a bulldozer.
Because for Apple, anything is better than doing business with the enterprise.
(See: FCP neutering, lack of reasonably-priced desktop, terrible Active Directory implementation, lack of SECURITY UPDATES for 1-year-old OS, random discontinuation of server hardware, thumb in the eye of VIRTUALIZATION which is the only way to run a modern enterprise, etc.)
2) Enterprise's only needs are industry-standard refresh cycles plus the ability to add storage and cards as needs grow and change.
Apple's response:
1) Delay refreshes by oh, say, a year or whatever. Don't say a word about it; just offer very old hardware for sale at premium prices.
2) Rearchitect the platform to meet a need for unit compactness that never existed, while simultaneously choosing the only shape (vertical cylinder) that completely prevents high-density installations. Even Mac Minis can be stacked at 100x the performance per square foot.
3) Also eliminate the only thing that enterprise *does* need which is the ability to stick drives and cards in the box without thousands of dollars in needless, performance-reducing external enclosures.
And yet despite the continuous stream of raised middle fingers from Apple, the market is still responding by shoehorning and rigging it back into a *bigger* enclosure that you can at least store at greater density than ~2 CPUs per square foot. (!!)
It wouldn't surprise me if Apple's next move was to post "Screw You, Enterprise. We hate your guts and want to sleep with your girlfriend." on their home page and then put a video of them crushing all remaining cylinder mac pros with a bulldozer.
Because for Apple, anything is better than doing business with the enterprise.
(See: FCP neutering, lack of reasonably-priced desktop, terrible Active Directory implementation, lack of SECURITY UPDATES for 1-year-old OS, random discontinuation of server hardware, thumb in the eye of VIRTUALIZATION which is the only way to run a modern enterprise, etc.)
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One of these combined with virtualization software like Parallels Enterprise Edition would be really useful. Then you could setup iSCSI or Xsan and have shared VM storage across multiple servers.
Another option would be use VirtualBox paired with PHPVirtualBox so you can have web management. Other than that both pieces of software do the same things, although i find parallels more stable.
While it's definitely going to cost more than a normal 1u server, if you depend on OS X and need Xeon performance this will work fairly nicely.
I would like to see an 8u version that stacks multiple Mac Pro's vertically and has some duct work to vent the air out of the back of the case.
Another option would be use VirtualBox paired with PHPVirtualBox so you can have web management. Other than that both pieces of software do the same things, although i find parallels more stable.
While it's definitely going to cost more than a normal 1u server, if you depend on OS X and need Xeon performance this will work fairly nicely.
I would like to see an 8u version that stacks multiple Mac Pro's vertically and has some duct work to vent the air out of the back of the case.
Why is everyone moaning about the design? This is a rack mount enclosure. It's meant to go in a rack like this:
Server racks aren't things people have on display - they are space preservative mounts to house multiple devices stacked. This Mac Pro rack mount will be very useful for studios.
If that's your cabinet, you should know that the cooling of 1U and 2U servers is designed around having them flush to each other. Air gaps between servers is stagnant and heats up.
A lot smaller?
The carts can't get any narrower than the standard 19" width as long as you have at least one rack-mountable device and a decent sized screen.
And I don't think anyone would make a shorter cart either.
A cart like the one I showed earlier wasn't that size because of the huge old Mac Pro.
They simply took a 12U rack and put wheels on it. And it happened to be a great working height.
So... if it can't get narrower... and it won't get shorter... I don't see carts getting "a lot smaller"
I hear you. I'm fenced as well, but I do understand Apple's direction.
I suspect that they are hoping that it will encourage the development and/or update of applications that use OpenCL, which will in turn be able to take advantage of the AMD GPU's for compute-related tasks, negating the need for additional CPU's.
I'm on the fence mainly because, for me, it's too early to say for certain if that strategy will pay off. Time will tell.
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My alternate design to the Sonnet case
Here is "my" rendering of a Mac Pro in a big rectangular case. Just like the Sonnet, this design also fits in a 4U rack space, has PCIe slots, has drive bays, supports multiple video cards, supports USB 3.0, and does not have exposed Thunderbolt ports.
Here is "my" rendering of a Mac Pro in a big rectangular case. Just like the Sonnet, this design also fits in a 4U rack space, has PCIe slots, has drive bays, supports multiple video cards, supports USB 3.0, and does not have exposed Thunderbolt ports.
Having spent many years working in places where rack mounted equipment is commonplace I have no problem with the appearance of this chassis.
I can see this box being used more for mobile applications than fixed installations, a portable DIT rig found on a film set being one of them. The PCIe expansion will be useful for RED Rocket cards etc.
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I fully agree.
I can see this box being used more for mobile applications than fixed installations, a portable DIT rig found on a film set being one of them. The PCIe expansion will be useful for RED Rocket cards etc.
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I don't see carts getting "a lot smaller"
I fully agree.
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If Apple were to put some I/O on the bottom (I did suggest this to them) then a far more elegant solution would be as artfully illustrated above. This rig would take 4 Mac Pros and supply power and I/O for all 4 without cables and other mess.
F1 designers don't give a flying toss what the cars look like. They just want them to be faster than all the others. Full stop. Nothing else. End of Story.
A lot smaller?
The carts can't get any narrower than the standard 19" width as long as you have at least one rack-mountable device and a decent sized screen.
And I don't think anyone would make a shorter cart either.
A cart like the one I showed earlier wasn't that size because of the huge old Mac Pro.
They simply took a 12U rack and put wheels on it. And it happened to be a great working height.
So... if it can't get narrower... and it won't get shorter... I don't see carts getting "a lot smaller"
Like you said they can get narrower, and whoever said that racks were going to be 19" forever?
At this point, we may see carts that use a different mounting system.
We can't expect Apple to be the only company to shake things up.
$1500 for an expansion case for a computer that costs $3000 MINIMUM for a machine that in its base configuration may be slower than an iMac that costs $1k less. Um, yeah, WHAT A BARGAIN!
Yeah, it's a "Pro" machine, but come on, when does "Pro" = "Ripoff" ? Answer: When you have Mac people willing to pay almost anything to not buy a Windows machine. Yes, they do take advantage of that factor...often.
Yeah, it's a "Pro" machine, but come on, when does "Pro" = "Ripoff" ? Answer: When you have Mac people willing to pay almost anything to not buy a Windows machine. Yes, they do take advantage of that factor...often.
I was bored at work and so I drafted up how many MacPros could fit in the space of 6 Sonnet Rackmounts.
The top image represents 6 Sonnet Rackmounts and the bottom shows its footprint (in yellow) against the space you could fit the most amount of Mac Pros.
Hmmm, the Sonnet kinda negates the use of good space, doesn't it.
The top image represents 6 Sonnet Rackmounts and the bottom shows its footprint (in yellow) against the space you could fit the most amount of Mac Pros.
Hmmm, the Sonnet kinda negates the use of good space, doesn't it.
? You can add GPU's to a server. Oh, as someone who works on servers, you're wrong. You build the server based on your needs for whatever purpose it has. Servers are not just designed for IO.
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Holy crap are those g4's? Maybe even g2's. You have some upgrading to do man. You do realize they are up to G8's now right?
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Holy crap are those g4's? Maybe even g2's. You have some upgrading to do man. You do realize they are up to G8's now right?
Why is everyone moaning about the design? This is a rack mount enclosure. It's meant to go in a rack like this:
Server racks aren't things people have on display - they are space preservative mounts to house multiple devices stacked. This Mac Pro rack mount will be very useful for studios.
People who say like you that Apple computers cost more are incorrect. You can't compare a consumer machines cost to a workstation device.$1500 for an expansion case for a computer that costs $3000 MINIMUM for a machine that in its base configuration may be slower than an iMac that costs $1k less. Um, yeah, WHAT A BARGAIN!
Yeah, it's a "Pro" machine, but come on, when does "Pro" = "Ripoff" ? Answer: When you have Mac people willing to pay almost anything to not buy a Windows machine. Yes, they do take advantage of that factor...often.
You have to compare a workstation to a workstation. There are reasons workstations cost more because there designed to be up and running 24 7 without problems and run at 100% most of the time. A consumer machine would not last under these conditions.
Try configuring an HP Z820 with the same specs as a mac pro and see what price you come up with. (I garuntee it will not be cheaper).
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Exactly. How to add 1.5K$ to an already-pricey machine just to get back what the original did without needing accessories.
You forgot that rack mounts aren't usually expansible in width. That's precisely why they're standard. Otherwise turn your design sideways and you actually get what a full rack of nMP would look like.