Donno, I kinda like it.
On Thursday, May 16, 2002, at 06:54 PM, Ed Kummel wrote:
> Where's the hot-swappable power-supplies?
They are in the 2nd U of the unit ;) Come on, it's 1U high, give them a=20=
*little* slack!
> RAID-5
> Hot-Swappable SCSI drives?
Announced. Will be available by the end of the year.
> Heck...are the drives that
> are in there even SCSI at all? (I would never consider
> a server with anything other than SCSI drives)
Why? There is more throughput on the ATA drives (multiple chains) than=20=
with a single U160. Although a dual 160 would be more, but we're=20
talking 1 U here. Maybe they will announce a 3U server later. =46rom =
the=20
site:
"Each drive has an independent Ultra ATA/100 bus, an arrangement that=20
allows maximum individual drive performance without choking the=20
throughput of the other drives. The ATA drive subsystem has a=20
high-bandwidth I/O bus that minimizes bottlenecks, even when all four=20
drives are engaged at once. That=92s how Xserve can achieve a =
theoretical=20
peak performance of up to 266 megabytes per second, compared to a=20
160MB/s theoretical performance with SCSI Ultra160 disk drives =97 at a=20=
significantly lower cost, and while generating less heat than SCSI=20
drives."
> These blade servers are all running
> RedHat...which has everything that the Apple servers
> are advertising)
Ahhh, never run OS X Server I see. No, I have yet to see a distribution=20=
that has everything to offer that OS X has. Maybe for your needs it has=20=
everything, but OS X is a much more rounded OS.
Dunno, I like the new Xserve. A lot of people are whining about RAID,=20=
SCSI or such... Then get a hardware RAID or SCSI card and tack it on. =20=
Problem solved. =46rom our stats our 500MHz G4 server (OS X Server=20
install) is *killing* our Linux and Windows servers for basic functions=20=
(throughput, x-fer speeds, PHP rendering, etc). There are a few things=20=
the Linux boxes do better, but all in all we prefer OS X Server. Not=20
one test did the Windows 2k server come out ahead. I have not tried a=20=
PPC distribution of Linux yet, but I'm curious to see how it stacks up.
Are there flaws with the server? Yes. Is it the lack of SCSI or RAID=20=
on board? I don't think so, but I do want to see how the drive stack=20
up. Keep in mind that IDE drives have come a *long* way in the past few=20=
years, almost to the point of SCSI drives. ATA is too slow, that's why=20=
they have independent ATA chains for each drive. Apple's RAID solution=20=
will connect via dual channel 2Gbps Fiber channel, FAR better than any=20=
current SCSI out there. Give Apple a little slack here. This is their=20=
first real server attempt (REAL attempt), and they have said many times=20=
that they know they need to grow this. I believe Steve said that they=20=
were going to be humble about this and see what people have to say. =20
Give them a fair chance.
At least they have something for X server now. Sticking X server in a=20=
G4 tower and calling it a 'server' was just insulting. Personally I=20
think X server is amazing and everyone should try it. I hope this helps=20=
Apple get X server in the door of a few companies and then get a few=20
more Macs in there too. Besides, I always liked NeXT.
Just my $0.02
Benjamin Higginbotham
webmaster_at_alphavideo.com
www.alphavideo.com
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