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thinking of buying the new Apple Xserve

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Old Apr 7, 2009 | 08:45 AM
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Hi folks,


Today Apple introduced the new Apple Xserve with upgraded procs to Nehalems and a few extra things that really are upgrades. They also made it as an option to use an 128 GB SSD as the boot drive and the oboard video card had been upgraded to an nvidia 120 GT.

I will however wait for Snow Leopard Server to arrive.

So what do you guys think? Do you have any experience with Leopard Server and thus with Xserve also?
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Old Apr 7, 2009 | 01:24 PM
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What do you need to use it for?
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 08:03 AM
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Originally Posted by tex_phil' post='839588' date='Apr 8 2009, 12:24 AM
What do you need to use it for?
webserver, fileserver for 15 computers in the network, netbios, tracker (maybe), and maybe even game server in a VM so almost all in one server.
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 08:05 AM
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Originally Posted by BetterMakeWay' post='840440' date='Apr 8 2009, 09:03 AM
webserver, fileserver for 15 computers in the network, netbios, tracker (maybe), and maybe even game server in a VM so almost all in one server.
go for it! It's a great server.
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 09:15 AM
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Nice server, but why would you need the upgraded videocard?
It's not (meant to be) a workstation.
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 09:48 AM
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Take a look at the HP EX487 MediaSmart Server, it does pretty much want you want, it plays well with Macs and it's quite a bit cheaper than the XServe. I have an EX387at home, I have 1.5TB of network storage on it and it also works as an iTunes server and a time machine backup location. It runs Windows Home Server and after the initial setup (which needs a PC) you can administer the server via your Macs.
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 02:00 PM
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Originally Posted by OverSoft' post='840528' date='Apr 8 2009, 08:15 PM
Nice server, but why would you need the upgraded videocard?
It's not (meant to be) a workstation.
the new quick path and Snow Leopard will allow for GPU procession power to be used for non graphical tasks. In essence you get another very powerful CPU which hardly costs anything.

LAter edit:

Quote from Apple.com:

OpenCL
Another powerful Snow Leopard technology, OpenCL (Open Computing Language), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU). With GPUs approaching processing speeds of a trillion operations a second, they’re capable of considerably more than just drawing pictures. OpenCL takes that power and redirects it for use in high-performance computing applications like genomics, video encoding, signal processing, and simulations of physical and financial models.
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 02:10 PM
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Originally Posted by swajames' post='840575' date='Apr 8 2009, 08:48 PM
Take a look at the HP EX487 MediaSmart Server, it does pretty much want you want, it plays well with Macs and it's quite a bit cheaper than the XServe. I have an EX387at home, I have 1.5TB of network storage on it and it also works as an iTunes server and a time machine backup location. It runs Windows Home Server and after the initial setup (which needs a PC) you can administer the server via your Macs.
I already have such an alternative with an older Dell which is running ubuntu linux. Thing is OSX is so damn easy to administer, and OSX Server just as easy, unlike linux tiresome command line lots of memorizing to do! I want to slowly but surely convert my office to OSX (Macs). And then having an Xserve just comes second nature. I mean why tire and bother with other apps that may or may not very well promise multi-platform (Windows and OSX) compatibility when you can have one that's specifically designed for this. For example iCal server. In Linux it's just a pain to find a good cal app server that supports CalDav and other stuff needed for WIndows and OSX compatibility.

Sure my Linux server doesn't really need replacing, except it has a very outdated RAM and low on figures (1 G but it does it's limited job right due to hardware limit, and in fact my iMac and Ubuntu are so friendly to each other that it really doesn't cause any headache. The problem is with the windows platforms which are so fragile, apps so easy corruptible, crashes, errors, drivers issues, compatibilities, old NTFS eating himself up due to unavoidable fragmentation etc etc etc....


PS: Remote desktop works like a charm with Ubuntu. I even took out the monitor, keyboard and mouse from the server. Remote administration all the way to go!
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 02:11 PM
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Are you going to be using the video card for rendering tasks? Why not just run a linux webserver? Do you need anything specifically for your applications that apple provides?
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Old Apr 8, 2009 | 02:18 PM
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Originally Posted by tex_phil' post='840887' date='Apr 9 2009, 01:11 AM
Are you going to be using the video card for rendering tasks? Why not just run a linux webserver? Do you need anything specifically for your applications that apple provides?
Are you asking this question after you've read my above replies?
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