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Xserve offers users power, choice in a 'dream machine'
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February 02, 2004 (Computerworld) -- Two words come immediately to mind to describe Apple's Xserve G5: power and choice. The Xserve G5 is a rack-mounted server product designed to work with Mac OS X Server to create a powerful and highly configurable server. And like the original Xserve, the new Xserve G5 continues to illustrate Apple's commitment to a high-performance server platform -- something that until recently was lacking in Apple's product scheme.
The Xserve G5 isn't a product that most mainstream Mac users will find interesting (except for perhaps diehard Mac fans). But it is a product that should appeal to system and network administrators who support and work with Mac clients on a daily basis, because of its power, convenience, interoperability with other platforms and the configuration options it offers.
Like the original Xserve and most rack-mounted servers, the Xserve G5 is designed to run in a server room, allowing average users to take for granted that their network access, server-based applications, e-mail, Web sites and the like will all be there when they need them.
Focusing solely on the hardware, the new Xserve just wows me. It has one or two 2-GHz G5 processors, uses 400-MHz ECC RAM and has a dedicated front-side bus running at 1 GHz (the dual-processor model has two independent front-side buses, one for each processor). Add to that the ability to support up to 8GB of RAM, and you have the makings of the fastest Mac ever conceived. But Apple didn't stop there. Each of the three drive modules contains dedicated 150MB/sec. controllers, and the Xserve supports 100- and 133-MHz PCI-X cards. Rounding out its impressive technology pedigree are two onboard Gigabit Ethernet ports, each with its own dedicated controller.
What does all that power mean? A machine that is up to 60% faster than the original Xserve, which was a powerhouse in its own right. Compared with similar server platforms, the Xserve G5 offers more sheer computational power for straight high-end computing tasks.
In terms of file services, it outpaces one of the fastest Windows file servers -- the IBM eServer x335 running Windows Server 2003 -- by about 20% in high-volume NetBench testing. (This is with both machines providing Server Message Block file services for Windows.) Interestingly enough, the performance difference grows as more clients are connected. With fewer than 12 clients, the IBM eServer provides better network throughput than the Xserve.
But sheer power isn't what impresses me most. That accolade goes to its ease of configuration, monitoring and maintenance. A stock Xserve out of the box is impressive, but it ships with only a single 80GB drive. Adding drives to the Xserve is impressively easy. Simply pop out one of the three hot plug drive modules, put a new drive in it (up to 250GB at present), pop the module back in, and you're ready to go. No powering down the server, no messy opening it up, just pop out and pop back in, with no downtime whatsoever.
Other hardware options include a CD-ROM or combo drive for installing software directly or providing optical backups (although given the situations in which one would use an Xserve, burning data to a CD or CD-RW doesn't strike me as a logical choice for backup or archiving).
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