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发帖数: 2053 | 1 http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Kills+Rackable+Xserve+Launches+Mac+Pro+Server/article20083.htm
New Mac Pro Server is reasonably priced for an OEM Xeon-powered desktop form
-factor server
Apple's server products aren't exactly best sellers, but some clients in
education, graphical design and other fields swear by them. Since 1996,
Apple has offered the Xserve -- a rack-mounted server. Last October it
aired the Mac Mini Server, a Mac Mini with the optical drive swapped for a
second hard-drive. That brought rumors that the Xserve's days might be
numbered.
Those rumors have come true. Apple will cease sales of Xserve in January
and has posted an online "Xserve Transition Guide" [PDF] for its customers.
According to the guide:
Apple will honor and support all Xserve system warranties and extended
support programs. Apple intends to offer the current shipping 160GB, 1TB,
and 2TB Apple Drive Modules for Xserve3 through the end of 2011 or while
supplies last. Apple will continue to support Xserve customers with service
parts for warranty and out-of-warranty service.
Apple is replacing the Xserve with a new product -- a Mac Pro Server desktop
which is definitely not 1U mountable. Available now, the default
configuration weighs in at $2,999 USD (the same base price as the
discontinued Xserve) and features one quad-core 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon "Nehalem"
processor, 8 GB of DDR3 RAM (four 2 GB sticks), two 1 TB hard-drives, an
ATI Radeon HD 5770, and a copy of Mac OS X Server, complete with client
license.
While $3K USD sounds like a lot for that kind of hardware, it's really not
as overpriced as some of Apple's other products -- at least when it comes to
products from OEM competitors. While you could probably assemble a server
piece-wise for significantly cheaper, Hewlett-Packard's closest competitors
are in line with Apple's pricing.
HP offers a 2.4 GHz Xeon (slower), with 3 GB of DDR3 memory (6 GB of DDR3
costs roughly $130 USD), and an NVIDIA Quadro FX580 (slower), and only a
single 250 GB hard drive for $2,199. If you add up the cost of upgrading to
the various higher end components in new Mac Pro Server, the pricing would
likely be in the same ballpark.
Apple is more than happy to offer lots of upgrades that will bump the price
though -- a pair of 2.93GHz six-core 'Westmere' chips (+$3,475 USD), 32GB of
RAM (+$3,400 USD), a Mac Pro RAID card (+$700) and a quad-channel 4Gb fibre
channel PCIe card (+$1,000). Apple does not appear to offer an option to
upgrade the graphics card.
It does however the opportunity to have up to four 512 GB solid state drives
. The first two will cost you $1,250, and the next two will cost you $1,400
, so getting a fully-loaded model would bump the price $5,300. Thus a full
loaded (hardware-wise) Mac Pro Server would cost a modest $16,874. |
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