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Xserve RAID Discontinued?

AidenShaw said:
I believe that this is a permanent exit from the SAN storage business - for all the reasons in your second paragraph.

Partnering with a company that specializes in storage is a smart move - it's just part of Apple's transition from a computer company to an electronic gadget company.




And those who do have an artistic flair don't see the point in considering "stying" in a device that will be in a rack in a locked computer room. ;)
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They aren't exiting this business. They are using XSan to be the Microsoft of Storage Network Hardware Vendors.
 
AidenShaw said:
And those who do have an artistic flair don't see the point in considering "stying" in a device that will be in a rack in a locked computer room. ;)
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Industrial design is more than just styling, though. When people talk about Apple's great designs, they also mean the way things are put together. Granted designs like the mini and the iMac are somewhat cramped, but the Xserve RAID was an extremely well-put-together machine in every sense.

Well, except for the need to lock it or risk destroying your data by bumping into it. That's a bit... uncool. Even if you rarely go near the thing.
 
Toe said:
Industrial design is more than just styling, though. When people talk about Apple's great designs, they also mean the way things are put together.
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Check out the HP ProLiants. Also excellent design (in that sense), with toolless installation, front panel diagnostic lights and a little blue light with a switch front and back.

HP also comes with ILO standard - there's an extra ethernet port that you can use to contact the maintenance controller and power cycle remotely, or grab the console input/output.

Anyway, my earlier point that "Apple's not going to get far into the enterprise by offering a single reasonably-priced mid-range 1U server - regardless of its merits" is key.

The Xserve isn't bad, but some people like to scale up as well as out. "One size fits all" doesn't work for a lot of businesses.
 
mdriftmeyer said:
They aren't exiting this business. They are using XSan to be the Microsoft of Storage Network Hardware Vendors.
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That's funny. XSan is software, for starters.

They did just exit the fibre storage manufacturing business, and instead chose to partner with a company with superior products.
 
Jackal-Head said:
"Connections: Hi-Speed USB"

Thanks for the laugh. Even the 2,5" 250GB pocket drive I bought last week supports FireWire 800 with 3-4 times the effective bandwidth of Hi-Speed USB. And FW800 would still look funny on a professional RAID that can saturate several multi-gbps Fibre Channel or InfiniBand links.
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If the original point was to find a cool-looking RAID other than the Xserve RAID, one doesn't have to look far. The Apple product was somewhat sleek, but heck, Medea (I guess Avid now) has them beat on the looks.
http://www.avid.com/products/videoRAID/

As for why one would ever care about how a RAID looks... Well, it's a long shot, but I suppose there are traveling racks, particularly of a/v equipment for doing digital processing on-site at an event. But I still am not sure why a/v techies would need their hardware to be particularly cool-looking, even if the public is going to see it.

That said... given a choice, plenty of geeks will opt to put something cool looking on their rack if it is otherwise the same as something boring. If nothing else, it impresses the suits on their bi-annual visit to the nerd cave.

;)
 

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Toe said:
That said... given a choice, plenty of geeks will opt to put something cool looking on their rack if it is otherwise the same as something boring.
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On the other hand, two great styles might clash if put in the same rack....
 

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diamond.g said:
Why not replace those Compaqs with Apples XServe? You know make your rack look uniform.
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I would guess that:

  1. Linux isn't supported on the Xserve
  2. The ProLiants have 6 drive slots
  3. The ProLiants have builtin hardware RAID to protect the system and data drives (it's hard to get a computer repairman during the winter)
 
AidenShaw said:
I would guess that:

  1. Linux isn't supported on the Xserve
  2. The ProLiants have 6 drive slots
  3. The ProLiants have builtin hardware RAID to protect the system and data drives (it's hard to get a computer repairman during the winter)
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I should have included a smiley. I was only kidding. We use Compaqs for our DC's and mail servers. Of course we connect them to a SAN (EMC Clariion) but you get the point.
 
I actually have a client with an xserve running linux. I asked him why, he said because he could....... it's a noisy bugger tho. no fan control. it was a g5 xserve.
 
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