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Sonnet Announces New 4U Enclosure to Rack Mount Two Mac Pros

Scarpad said:
Kinda kills the point of them looking unique, No ?

Which begs the question did they ever need to look that way. The individual or company that needs the power of the pro don't need it to look like a work of art, they just need it functional.
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Eh. Different functions for different people.

mrhick01 said:
They cannot sell "functional" by the hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even the tens of thousands.

A third party has provided a solution that Apple will allow that provides such functionality. Sonnet can be profitable with this with a lower volume of sales.
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Exactly this. "Part of the niche market that liked rack-mountable Mac Pros? We have a solution."

danielsutton said:
It does not make sense to spend hundreds of dollars on top of an already pricey machine simply to rack-mount it. Apple needs to release new dedicated rack-mountable hardware.
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Not going to happen - and what makes you think that the Apple designed RackPro wouldn't be hundreds of dollars more?

Ceebler said:
I thought one of the 'features' of the new Mac Pro design was its thermal cooling design around the heat rising from the central core of the system. Does mounting these things on their side provide cooling issues that will affect performance and/or lifetime?
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Apple has established that it can run on its side.

lh723 said:
Agree. Working on a launching a kickstarter for another product that rack mounts the new Mac Pro called the Mode Mount. Should launch in a week or so. Check it out: modemount.com

Prototype:
[url=http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l278/LesHarter/ModeMount_zpsf05aea1d.jpg]Image[/URL]

Here's a rendering of two, side by side in a 4u rack:

[url=http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l278/LesHarter/sidebyside_zps8caca189.jpg]Image[/URL]
Click to expand...

Have you looked at what the design of those will do to a rack designed for cooling, rather than just "hanging stuff from rails"?
 
This is a good solution, if a company wants to only use Macs but wants a modern system, this is the only way to go if they need big number crunching, or you can line them all up on a desk.
But placing them in racks and in cabinets is good, gives you security and control and you can monitor and control heat flow better.

I remember Virginia Tech built a supercomputer by joining up loads and loads on Mac Pro's:

Virginia-Tech-Deploys-29-Teraflop-Mac-Cluster-2.jpg


Not as neat a solution as using the new Mac Pro in rack cases.

I still want my 6 core model :(
 
Cool but

Wonder how this affects the cooling being on its side

Oops i should have read the posts above lol
 
Last edited:
lh723 said:
It's a combination of machining, bending, and water-jet. We are looking into extrusion vs water-jetting out everything and bending. We maximized cutting patterns and shapes to give us the least amount of wasted materials.
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Do you guys plan on sending the waste material back into the front end of production?
 
FluJunkie said:
Have you looked at what the design of those will do to a rack designed for cooling, rather than just "hanging stuff from rails"?
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We tried to maximize the space around the Mac Pro in a server rack to allow for optimal cooling / airflow. We've heard they can run hot so allowing them to be minimally housed is ideal.
 
ChrisA said:
I'd guess these are NOT mass produced in China. You are paying for a very low volume semi-custom product.

Have you priced an empty general purpose 4U chassis lately? Cutting, bending and assembly of high quality aluminum chassis is not cheap. Try hiring a machine shop to do it for you.
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$75 on newegg lol

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811128077 I'm sure 2 new Mac pros could be attached to that rack fairly easily.

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apolloa said:
This is a good solution, if a company wants to only use Macs but wants a modern system, this is the only way to go if they need big number crunching, or you can line them all up on a desk.
But placing them in racks and in cabinets is good, gives you security and control and you can monitor and control heat flow better.

I remember Virginia Tech built a supercomputer by joining up loads and loads on Mac Pro's:

Image

Not as neat a solution as using the new Mac Pro in rack cases.

I still want my 6 core model :(
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Those are powermac G5s.
 
Cali Fornia said:
Hahaha $599/$898 for what exactly? xD
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For the rack unit by itself. That's fairly inexpensive.

I'm sure we'll find out more when Sonnet posts the final specs and photographs of each product offering.

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k1121j said:
Wonder how this affects the cooling being on its side

Oops i should have read the posts above lol
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As long as the bottom and top are open, and there's proper air flow, it should work fine. Racks are usually open on the backside for proper air flow. At least all of the ones I've sold.
 
Shrug ....

I actually *used* to care about this sort of thing. But I've come to realize it's pretty much insanity to get upset about it anymore.

Apple only made a brief attempt to sell serious server-related gear for the "back end", with the XServe and XSan solutions. Even then, everyone I knew who bought those products was less than impressed with the level of customer support they received when they called in with software issues. Few people at Apple were trained to be able to answer the type of technical questions sysadmins were throwing at them with OS X Server... detailed configuration needs that could only be met through the Terminal prompt and editing the right hidden files, etc. etc.

Rather than pouring the financial investment into it necessary to compete in that sector, Apple opted to slowly back away, and concentrate on what they're better at; the consumer side, with a nod to "pro" users in creative fields and keeping a presence in education.

Rack mounting a Mac Pro is a niche desire that surely, a few people out there will have. It turned out a number of web application hosting places started rack mounting Mac Minis too -- something else Apple wasn't really planning on or interested in officially supporting.

melendezest said:
I agree.

Apple doesn't. I believe they will never release a rackmount version.

With the new Mac Pro, Apple shows it only cares for a subset of the "Pro" market.

Road warriors have to "suck it" with devices like this.

I just don't understand their mentality sometimes. (Lately, most of the time)
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Most of you folks saying this is a pointless product, like so many things in the Apple ecosystem, don't need this product.

There's a niche market for Mac servers. Companies with primarily Apple based workstations that need collaborative, searchable servers? You need a Mac server. You're not going to get spotlight on a Windows server via SMB.

Sure, a Mac mini with a thunderbolt pegasus works most of the time. But what if you need a system with a powerful CPU or possibly aggregated network links? Looks like you've got a Mac Pro requirement. What if the company has a data center and you need to put this equipment in a vertical form-factor rack? Well now you're out of luck, except now you have this sonnet device.

If you're a company willing to spend the 4000-5000 bucks on a Mac server for a company, shelling out the additional $1000 to make it fit in with the rest of their managed workspace is a no-brainer. I personally will be recommending this for any solution that fits this description that I install in the future. In fact I have a client I'm going to propose this for tomorrow.
 
MacsRgr8 said:
Really?

Why do you think they killed the Xserve?
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They killed the X-Serve because it was a poorly designed*, overpriced product the few could justify the expense or low functionality of.

I imagine they didn't replace it with something better because Apple became a consumer lifestyle company.


* on it own, a beautiful, well constructed machine but for it's intended purpose, surprisingly limited.
 
An HDMI port in a data center environment is pointless. Ever seen "crash carts" - aka monitor / screen / keyboard sets in the DC with HDMI ?

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FlatlinerG said:
That price isn't even terrible considering how much rack mounts and other server hardware actually costs..It is fairly high, but not outrageous.
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A lot less than that. Before I spend that sort of money on a simple enclosure but I am desperate, I would rather buy a decent rackmount shelf .. for $30 ... Until someone comes up with a cheaper alternative ..
 
danielsutton said:
It does not make sense to spend hundreds of dollars on top of an already pricey machine simply to rack-mount it. Apple needs to release new dedicated rack-mountable hardware.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is enough demand for it to make it worthwhile making it. Not everyone that buys or wants a MacPro actually wants something rack mountable.

I personally thought they should have come out with a box that can be a tower or rack mountable, but obviously they didn't do that.

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thats all folks said:
They killed the X-Serve because it was a poorly designed*, overpriced product the few could justify the expense or low functionality of.

I imagine they didn't replace it with something better because Apple became a consumer lifestyle company.


* on it own, a beautiful, well constructed machine but for it's intended purpose, surprisingly limited.
Click to expand...


They didn't have the resources to really go after the Enterprise Server market and Jobs didn't know much about that market. Jobs knew more about the consumer market and they saw the opportunity of Smartphones and Tablets.
 
LastQuadrant said:
I don't think there is enough demand for it to make it worthwhile making it. Not everyone that buys or wants a MacPro actually wants something rack mountable.

I personally thought they should have come out with a box that can be a tower or rack mountable, but obviously they didn't do that.
Click to expand...

It would have been perfect if apple made a box with all the new shiny hardware like the PCIe SSD in a maybe 19'' tall case which you can lay down, screw some brackets in or maybe apple style clip them somehow in (there would be a nice looking solution) and its maybe 2-3 maybe 4 Units tall. Then everyone could be happy.

I love rack mounting things, but I have to rack mount my stuff. I dont have a nMP and I'm not planning on buying on right now (I have two Mac Minis rackmounted). And because of these form changes in Mac computers, I really hope the new Mac mini does not also get a bad form factor for rack mounting like the new TC/AE.
 
lh723 said:
Agree. Working on a launching a kickstarter for another product that rack mounts the new Mac Pro called the Mode Mount. Should launch in a week or so. Check it out: modemount.com

Prototype:
[url=http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l278/LesHarter/ModeMount_zpsf05aea1d.jpg]Image[/URL]

Here's a rendering of two, side by side in a 4u rack:

[url=http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l278/LesHarter/sidebyside_zps8caca189.jpg]Image[/URL]
Click to expand...

Like it. Minimalist design. Minimal waste. Looks impressive (like jet engines). Better accessibility/visibility of cables.

But won't a rack of those blow over? Or at least generate some pretty impressive thrust? :D
 
CoLocker have a neat hosting solution already.. put one into a locker - no cooling, power or comms issues... colocker.com
 
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