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2006's equivalent of a IIfx :P

L

littlecloud92

6502
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What could this be? :?:

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Specs on the pull-out tab... Assembled in U.S.A.! I guess those iPod sweatshop workers didn't get to put this one together! :p

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Just like any PC rackmount on the bottom... I was expecting something more flashy! xx(

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The top case looks a lot better than the unfinished metal of the bottom; some scruffs and scratches, but ding-free. Cleaned of stickers and their pesky residue. Bubble wrap taped to underside to prevent further wear on it, as well as my table.

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Top case has been taken off. What painfully empty RAM banks... :'(

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Front panel view. Xserves came from the factory with the labeled ADM in the leftmost bay, it was probably swapped by its previous owner; will rectify when I am in the mood for cloning disks.

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One of the ADMs with a SAS drive, removed from its bay.

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Makes an excellent table-cum-space-heater indeed! |)

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Bought one of these cheap USB sound thingies for audio needs... it works acceptably, but volume controls don't work (it's either muted or full blast with no in-betweens whatsoever) and audio distorts easily. Serves me right for not getting a Griffin iMic in the first place!

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About This Mac... er... Server! (Has the Xserve ever been considered a Macintosh, by Apple?) 8-)

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System Profiler detail.

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First time I get to see how a populated SAS pane looks like!

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There's also this mystery device connected to an internal USB bus... just what does it control on the front panel?

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This panel full of geek stats puts iStat Pro/iStat Menus to an absolute shame! :lol:

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Lastly...

The front panel, at night. Those blinkenlights look 1000x better in person, I didn't manage to get them to show up nicely in pictures, despite multiple attempts :disapprove:

The sight of those lights alone make living with the noise (a steady hum, similar to a vacuum but at lower intensity) totally worth it!

 
You're going to rack that thing, right? I don't understand why you would want an audio device for it. It's way too loud to be a desktop and you can't hear it in the machine room anyways.

I have a dual G5 I use for my web/mail server:

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Intel Xserves are nowhere as noisy as PowerPC models. I'd say that mine sounds about the same as a small running AC compressor unit, instead of a few jet planes taking off as s the case with the latter. When I'm at the console, it can't be heard over the music I play, and when I'm away from its desk using my MBP, its humming gives me the "oh how I wish I was the admin of some server cluster" warm feeling ::) It doesn't bother me much, I put it to sleep when I'm turning in.

No, I am not going to rack it up (no rack at home) and yes, it's being used as my only Intel desktop Mac.

Call my crazy but I do need my desktop to be more reliable than my server, I'd lose unsaved work if my desktop crashed, but if my server crashed, it would be nowhere as bothersome (only for downloads, IRC, and central file repository that sees only light usage)

Is that your rack at your workplace? I see an IBM server of some sort that's using an Ultrabay optical drive (is it hotswappable?), the G5 (cool blinkenlights!), and a HP drive array. (How much space?)

 
Think I posted this photo awhile back:

xserves.jpg


The G4 Xserve (missing drive) is there because I don't know where else to put it. The Xserve RAID on the bottom was something I bought for parts off eBay for around a grand. XSR is sort of a relic at this point, but replacing it with something more modern like a Promise or HP array is around a $16K-30K proposition, so buying a couple more years of useful life out of the old RAID seemed to make a lot of sense. Have also been buying Drobos for less-critical applications and have been really pleased with them.

 
Pretty sweet box, cloud. I almost grabbed a Dell equivalent, the PowerEdge 2950, but decided against it because the dual 3GHz Woodcrest chips cost nearly as much as a newer server anyway. Some more memory and that box should be useful for quite some time, which is good.

BTW, 4season, are those HP boxes on the left some of the Itanium ones? Like the rx2660 or whatever. What sort of applications run on those? (And which OS do you use?)

 
BTW, 4season, are those HP boxes on the left some of the Itanium ones? Like the rx2660 or whatever. What sort of applications run on those? (And which OS do you use?)
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Nah, those are DL380G5s equipped with dual Xeon processors and they're running Windows. To the right of the Xserves and out of the photo are the newest HPs we got, which are the DL380G6es, but they're up to G7 now. They mostly serve up 4D databases. But we've been moving away from standalone servers, partly because heat and power consumption are ongoing problems. So newer projects are virtualized in VMware Vsphere, and you might say that Linux is the foundation upon which everything is built. I understand that OS X can also run under Vsphere, but I doubt that it's sanctioned by Apple. Wish they would, because I'd sooner migrate to Windows than haul Mac Pros into the server room.

 
Yeah, I later found some pictures of some DL380s laid out like that and I was like "Yeah... it's probably just windows." VMWare ESXi/ESX/VSphere is pretty cool. My newest machine is a Dell PowerEdge T610 (which is, as I understand, sort of like something HP would sell with the ML brand) and runs ESXi. It's pretty awesome and nearly infinitely expands the usefulness of the machine. Right now I have Solaris 10, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008R2 running on it with "just" 4gb of ram. (At some point, more ram is going to be one of my first updates to the box.)

I've heard rumors of OS X on ESX/ESXi, and know a person who runs it this way on his Dell PE 2950, but decided against doing it this way myself because my box was mainly for VDI experiments (and replacement of desktops and the previous server roles) -- not necessarily to run OS X desktop software, which VMWare is bad at.

 
No, I am not going to rack it up (no rack at home) and yes, it's being used as my only Intel desktop Mac.
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Either you are more deaf than me or ... I got nothin'. Any rack mount equipment has no regard for noise levels and I can't imagine having to use one as a desktop. But differn't strokes and all that.

Is that your rack at your workplace? I see an IBM server of some sort that's using an Ultrabay optical drive (is it hotswappable?), the G5 (cool blinkenlights!), and a HP drive array.
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They are other client's servers at the web hosting company I work for. One of the perks is free colo for my machine. I use a mini as my desktop there. Nice and quiet.

 
One of the perks is free colo for my machine.
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I had a deal like that with the university I used to work for. As long as it didn't host anything itchy, they were fine with letting me stick the Apple Network Server in a corner. It stayed there for years while I was a consultant until I moved on.

I'm used to the whine of fans in this apartment, but when I get my house they'll get a "lab."

 
I guess I'm a little puzzled by one thing... why did you get an Xserve instead of a Mac Pro, again? They're identical. Both of them use software RAID (not hardware) and they use the same error-correcting RAM so there really isn't a reliability case to be made for one over the other. I'm guessing the Xserve was cheaper? (Taking a peek at "buy it now" prices on eBay that seems like a workable theory...)

On the subject of sound devices, I was pleased when I found a dinky little USB audio device in the garbage the other day. It was labeled "Plantronics" and was apparently designed to be used to adapt their analog phone headsets to computer use. Seems to work like a champ with OS X and Linux, complete with full volume controls and enough output oomph to drive a set of headphones. I love free stuff.

 
I'm guessing the Xserve was cheaper? (Taking a peek at "buy it now" prices on eBay that seems like a workable theory...)
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Bingo! :p Don't forget the redundant PSUs too!

The cheap USB audio device pops, cackles and buzzes A LOT and it's driving me crazy. Need a Griffin iMic ASAP!

Also, I need to figure out how to position the thing so I can both use it and admire the blinkenlights at the same time. It's too deep for any of my tables :'(

 
yeah, xserves sell for peanuts. My boss wants to migrate to minis (downsized a bit, don't need big beafy xserves any more) but given the resale value, not worth selling them off either...

If know anyone that wants a G4 xserve, a 4 core and 8 core xserves, 7TB xserve raid, 4 port KVM, APC Smart UPS XL 3000VA rack mount UPS w/ extra battery back, in an Anthro rolling rack (that you can't buy any more) let me know I'd even throw in a couple of marathon G3/G4 rack mounts I've got kicking around :p $3500 for the whole damn thing.

 
The cheap USB audio device pops, cackles and buzzes A LOT and it's driving me crazy. Need a Griffin iMic ASAP!
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That's funny because the built-in sound output on my work Mac Pro pops, crackles, and buzzes a lot. It's most annoying.

(I'm not entirely sure if it's because the hardware sucks or because the Linux Intel HDA driver is doing something wrong. The system has spent maybe six hours total booted into OS X.)

 
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