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Apple Updates Xserve, Announces Xserve RAID
jht writes "This morning Apple introduced an updated Xserve and the long-awaited Xserve RAID. The relevant specs for new Xserve: single or dual G4/1.33, upgraded DDR 333 RAM, and FireWire 800 all added, with pricing between $2799 and $8248 for stock configs. The Xserve RAID specs: shipping in configs of 720GB for $5999, 1.26TB for $7499, or 2.52TB for $10999. It uses up to 14 180GB drive modules (each on a separate ATA/100 channel), and a pair of Fibre Channel interfaces to connect them to the Xserve."
Well from the spec's its got hot swapable redunant power supplies, hot swapable redundant cooling subsystem, hot swapable redundant RAID controllers, hot swapable RAID cache battery backup (72 hours), and supports fibre channel output, through a well priced card. Saying IDE doesn't cut it is a bit of a generalisation.
First off, you're using an outdated OS on the machine. No multitasking, that's why your machine is crawling. Secondly, you offer no specifics on hard drive speeds or bus speeds so I can't help you there. Next, pitting NT against anything that Apple did before OS X is a losing battle for Apple. If you want to see a really impressive dual, put a new Apple G4 tower against a newer PC. i do it at work, on my desk a dual 1Ghz g4 tower versus a Dell 2.2 Ghz. Both with 1.5 gigs of ram. The Mac outperforms it consistently. What you really need to do is update your hardware or stop using Macs if they bother you so much.
Well if you're refering to the general switch from scsi to ide, then not really. Apple adopted scsi wwwwaaay back before ide even existed. Back then there was scsi or mfm/rll. And mfm/rll only offered internal hard drive storage, no scanners, no external drives. So the original adoption of scsi made complete sense back then. Apples continued use of scsi made sense for almost exactly the same reasons. Many people had things like scanners and external hd's (dtp, video, etc), so a move to ide wouldn't have made sense even if it would have resulted in a somewhat cheaper disk subsystem, since they'd most likely would have to have shipped scsi anyway.
Now fast forward, things like usb and firewire take care of things like scanners and other higher speed peripherals, the the internal disk bus can be just that. So all of a sudden ide makes sense. And then in terms of performance, ide has definitely caught up and it would be hard to make an argument for scsi from a strictly price/performance standpoint.
So, while a curiousity, it not all that ironic, just a sign of the times.
Good Design - a joy to work with ;-)
And somehow that translates in a better bottom line for the buyer.
You have a point with ECC to a certain extent, but the PSU is a non-issue. Dell is the only Tier 1 vendor that supplies a back-up PSU, and it's jury-rigged at that... It's not standard issue. Why not take the Xserve to task for the lack of redundant cooling as well? The 1650 has it... By the very fact that the Xserve does not have redundant PSUs or cooling, it is aimed at a different market segment than the one that requires absolute 100% up time, and therefore ECC is not that much of an issue. The single cosmic ray that switches a single bit during a year is not going to matter much to the market the Xserve is aimed at. The 1U market is based on price, including space, and performance, not on reliability. Obviously, it can't be a piece of crap, but... I'm sure if Apple made a 2U unit they would include redundant everything, but then they also would need to come up with a processor that can compete with the Xeons in 2u units. Maybe when the 970 comes out, but not now... Anyhow, why is it that everyone assumes the people at Apple are stupid? They have done a fine job at finding the right balance for the right market segment. Obviously, if you NEED ECC or redundancy, don't buy an Xserve. It's pretty simple... Although I can understand your disappointment over not being able to buy one because you do need those things... ;-)
Main equipment room? Why not just rack it with the decks and other sundry equipment in the edit suites? Less cabling, nicer look and probably a damnsight easier to work on than some of the kludgy tower setups I've seen, which usually result in a ton of recabling to do minor tweaks in the box.