Mac in Europe

Apple’s latest entry into the server category is the new Mc Pro Server which is one of the three desktops from Apple’s Macintosh line of products. As the Mac Pro family is based on Intel Xeon processors, the Mac Pro Server also offers the same processors where one can choose from 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon ‘Nehalem’ to two 2.93 GHz - six-core Intel Xeon ‘Westmere’ processors ( which step up to 12 cores), where the top configuration makes for the fastest available Mac.

Overview

The earlier Mac Pro Servers featured the Power G5 processors which are now replaced with the Intel Xeon Processors which range from four to six cores. The latest Mac Pro Server also has provisions for dual processors wherein one can have eight to twelve cores running on one system, exponentially increasing its computing power. This makes for great performance and the servers can handle much demanding loads.

Features

The main feature of the Mac Pro lineup is that it provides the user with a lot of expansion capabilities. Hence they can be a great choice for a server platform where one can customise the Server as per one’s needs.

The standard configuration, which can be seen as the base or entry-level server configuration for the Mac Pro Server comes with the 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor based on the ‘Nehalem’ microarchitecture which supports 8MB L3 cache per processor that gives performance a boost by keeping instructions and data in a fast-access cache available to all processor cores. Also the processors have Turbo Boost technology which makes for better power management by powering down cores that are not used and supplying power to the running cores. The processors also have Hyper-threading which can run threads simultaneously, providing virtual cores that can be double the number of actual cores.

Mac Pro Servers that have single processors can have up to 16GB DDR3 ECC SDRAM which can be distributed over 4 memory slots. The entry level Mac Pro Server comes with 8GB (4 x 2GB) RAM. As a general rule of thumb, more RAM enables more performance as accessing data from RAM is faster than accessing data from a hard drive. So, an 8GB RAM can be sufficient for an entry level server.

The Server also has four drive bays which can support up to 8 TB of storage with 7200 rpm Serial ATA hard drives which have a transfer rate of up to 3 GB/s. The drive bays are also compatible with high performing Solid State Drives (SSD) which support transfer rates of up to 223 MB/s.  Also, one of the main features of the drive bays is that these drive bays have cable free –direct attach drive solution which makes installing and removing just a breeze. The standard configuration of the Server incorporates 1 TB hard drive each in two of the bays, totalling the storage up to 2 TB.

One can even choose to incorporate a Mac Pro RAID Card for enhanced data protection and storage performance of the server. However, these are not compatible with SSD hard drives.

The Server also has provision for incorporating two 18x double-layer SuperDrives which can write double layer DVDs. The standard specification comes with one SuperDrive.
The graphics for the Server are provided by the ATI Radeon HD 5770 which has dedicated 1GB GDDR5 RAM. This particular graphic card can handle most graphic intensive application and delivers faster performance when compared to its predecessors.

One can also choose to add a Fibre Channel PCI Express card (4GB) for connecting to fibre channel based storage or the Xsan Storage network. These come in two variants, dual channel and quad channel and one can select them according to their need. These can be chosen in combination with the optional Xsan 2.2 software which enables the user to share terabytes of data across Fibre Channel networks.

All these components work together seamlessly with the help of the powerful Mac OS X Server operating system which comes pre-installed and offers unlimited client licences.

Bottom-line

The Mac Pro Server provides the user with a high level of customisation and lots of expansion capabilities. With this flexibility one can choose to create a standard, entry-level server or one can go all out on the options and experience a true ‘power server’. Hence the Mac Pro Server is for anyone who needs a server; may it be a basic entry level one or a full power server.