Let us face it: there is only one, Apple's rack-mounted servers, upgrade to it coming and going of the life cycle of Intel processors. Sometimes this reality, it is difficult to excited about a new Xserve, but the 2009 version of the notice: This server is an undeniable faster than the previous generation, use less electricity, and reduce heat. I looked at all three versions of Intel chips based on the Xserve; the combination does not happen very often.

Product:

Xserve (2009)

Pros:

1U server sees substantial presentation development over previous invention; reduced power utilization and heat amount produced.

Cons:

Leopard server the server can not use the full RAM capacity; SAS hard disk from a third-party vendor does not provide warranty uplift SAS hard drive; a complete lights-out management; no choice of video card.

Company:

Apple

OS compatibility:

10.5 Leopard Server

Processor compatibility:

Intel

Configurations and upgrades:

The new Xserve's basic configuration, which is priced at 2.999 U.S. dollars, including a quad-core 2.26GHz Xeon processors, up to 3GB of DDR3 of 1066MHz memory, and a single 160GB, 7200 switch to SATA hard disk. In the expansion of the 16x slots are PCI Express 2.0, higher than 8 times in the past Xserve; a slot can accommodate cards of 6.6 inches, 9.25 inches the other. The standards of the SuperDrive, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two FireWire 800 ports, a DB - 9 serial port, three high-speed USB 2.0 port; a USB port is on the server's front panel.

Scalability of two Xeon processors at 2.26GHz, 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz; the 1066MHz up to 12GB of DDR3 memory in a single processor models (24GB for dual-processor configuration); the second power supply; and a variety of Ethernet networks and Fiber Channel controller. The Xserve server can accommodate a maximum of three 3.5-inch disk, in both varieties of SAS or SATA. A new 128GB solid-state disk (SSD) can be used. All Xserves include an unlimited user copy of Mac OS X Server.

Optional RAID card has been upgraded to a faster processor and 512MB of memory (from 256 last year). RAID card upgrade in 2009 is specific to the Xserve, can not be converted to an earlier model.

This review, Apple provided a unit has two quad-core 2.26GHz Xeon processors, 12GB memory, 128GB solid-state hard drive, 3 1TB of SATA disk, optional RAID card, and two power supplies. The retail price of this configuration is 6.249 U.S. dollars. (By contrast, the 2008 review unit 3GHz processors, 8GB of memory, three 1TB of SATA disk RAID card, and two power supply, a retail price of 8.999 U.S. dollars).

Architectural improvements:

Today's Xserve server uses the latest Intel Xeon processor 5500 series, code-named Nehalem. The current generation of memory controller integrated into the processor chip itself, each processor includes built-8MB L3 cache; cache shared between the four core processor. Three-channel memory controller to use staggered in order to achieve a faster I / O time, DIMM slots to fill the three groups. Nehalem DIMM facilities permitted sets of one, two or three different optimization of storage density and speed; manufacturers such as Dell or Hewlett-Packard to expose the matrix to the customer, but to simplify things, Apple is only shipping the required combination 3 DIMM memory, in order to achieve maximum effectiveness.

6 DIMM slots for each processor, a total of 12 slots in the eight-core Xserve. (If you add or change memory, the memory in the system configuration utility start automatically activated to indicate whether the best of your installed RAM. This utility is stored in / System / Library / Core Services directory can be manually activated).

It should be noted that, Mac OS X Leopard can not take full advantage of the new Xserve memory capacity. Where the leopard can only use 32GB of memory, eight-core Xserve a theoretical maximum capacity of 48GB (fill in 4GB of memory if all 12 slots). In addition, the memory configuration of Apple's sales only by using three sets of matching DIMM memory, 12GB, each processor is the world's largest from the factory configuration: 4GB of memory in three locations, or 24GB dual-processor Xserve. Xserve If you need more than 24GB of RAM, I suggest to wait until after Snow Leopard Server is available, because it will resolve as much as 16TB of RAM.

Remote frustrations:

Apple's Lights-Out Management (LOM) is on its third revision, and is still unsatisfactory. The 2009 edition advertises itself via Bonjour, making it easier to find out and examine Xserves with Server Monitor. However, the LOM still piggybacks on a service Ethernet connector, still require shell access to Mac OS X Server, and still lacks KVM-over-IP functionality. Given that Lights-Out Management enables privileged access on a protected network, it would be very suitable if an administrator could use the LOM to get shell access or control the Xserve via Screen Sharing. These features have been obtainable on competing servers from HP, Sun, and Dell for years. In its place, these utility may only be accessed from inside Mac OS X Server, on a service IP network.

With Apple's implementation, administrators have to offer numerous IP addresses on unusual networks, and make use of any VLAN or firewall deception to make safe the network ports used for administrative access. Were these ports available from the LOM on a safe administrative network, an administrator could just hook up to the LOM and have complete power in a secure manner. In today's marketplace, Apple's LOM is sadly unfinished.

Testing performance and power:

Intel Nehalem architecture makes available a major boost in performance, in spite of the lower clock speeds than preceding models. For the subsequent basis: turbo boost agree to the processor to immobilize idle cores to run at a peak at the similar time the core is high than normal speed. Hyper-Threading Technology agree to a core to run two threads, each core its own operating system as two essential cores, so Mac OS X servers to deal with the 8 core Xserve seems to have 16 cores. Taken together, these features allow the single-threaded applications to run quicker than estimated and the balance of multi-threaded applications, can take complete benefit of parallel processing.

Video card:

Has been occupied Xserve in two different worlds: Video editing and data centers. This resulted in double the ideal compromise for the object, including embodied with the NVIDIA GeForce GT120 video card. While this card is the same as in a Mac Pro, the 256MB of video memory, half of its desktop counterpart. Apple said, GT120 card sufficient to run the pro-application services, such as Final Cut Pro or Aperture can drive two 30-inch displays, but the video users are likely to want a high-performance GPU. (Apple Computer graphics cards do not provide alternative options for the Xserve because it Mac Pro).

Storage options:

Optional solid state hard drive, and often referred to as SSD, is not occupied by the hard disk slot, but inside the Xserve itself up. Provide excellent performance SSD random read operations, such as the start operating system or start the application. As the recipient of aging (a phenomenon unique to that all-solid blocks with their performance down to write and rewrite several times), Apple recommends that the use of SSD as a boot drive, where activities will be constrained to write to logs, virtual memory (exchange), light domestic duties. If you visit the Xserve is stored in the SAN or NAS, and the SSD provides a compelling vision of the target server without moving parts.