Apple's X-Serve
 

I have an incredible deal on Apple X-Serves through a movie company that is using Macs in an upcoming summer release. I haven't heard of any porn folks using them but I know a lot of you are pretty knowledgeable in general about servers and OS's.

What do you think about them? Plus's and minuses. The deal is incredible and I wanna know if it is worth the time.

if it's a good deal i'd take them.

the only reason we havent moved to mac servers (even though we've fully moved to mac desktops and laptops) is the price.

If there are extras hit me up, i'd be interested :)

Selling them? I have a musician friend who would probably want one :)

BUt yeah since mac went OSX(bsd) they should make *great* servers, especially if your a mac guy. I think Apple has it all hooked up for pretty GUI remote administration and stuff.

But like hooper said - their price keeps them from being used in the mainstream very often I think.

I mean you can build *BEEFY* intel/amd boxes these days for <$500. For $500 with apple your lucky to get something from a couple years ago.

If you have an incredible deal I wonder why you haven't talked to me of all people? Those are pretty kick ass servers and OS X Server is real easy to run. The hardware is great quality virtually the only difference between these and powermacs is some of the on board drive options and they are rackmount with OS X Server on them. You need to PM me and we'll talk and I'll tell you how good a deal it is and you know some others of us that might be interested.

I have no direct experience with Apple X-Serves, but...

PC Magazine did a review about 6-months ago and liked them:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,575556,00.asp

They also described them as being good value:

apple is unix :)

Wow, I was kinda expecting to hear from this crowd "Unix rules!!" or "If it ain't Free BSD then go home!" I thought the purists would lynch me here even though Apple's are both of them. :1orglaugh

Apple is BSD... bsd is *nix++ :winkwink:

Yeah PW.. if you can get an awesome deal on them (say anything 1/2 price or better) snag them and play with them a bit. If you don't like them you'll still be able to dump them for what you paid for at least a year no doubt.

I'm an apple maniac now.. but a single processor, single ide drive and 256 megs of ram for 3k? thats really really overpriced.

i just built a dell on dell.com that is equivalent to that and it came out to $1700 with tax and a next day onsite service plan (which i dont need.. so i assume i could build a similar server elsewhere for a few hundred bucks less).

Apple's problem has always been expensive hardware.

A 'good value' indeed. PC Magazine got theirs for free no doubt. :mad:

:1orglaugh

You guys didn't realize that as a hobby PW is a mac hater and he's very surprised to see people saying that these X Serves are kickass machines. By the way some people use them as video editing setups too PW since Apple has an option to add a card into one of the slots.

Heh, gotcha Hooper. :winkwink:

I'll keep you and GoBigtime in mind when I find out how many I am limited to.

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I can't hear you ya friggin Steve Jobs zealot!

Here, stop yappin about nothin and listen to some good music not created on a Mac Here

Yeah I *Hate* apple for their prices. They make these really kick ass looking machines, and now have an OS that allows for a unix environment AND Adobe/Macromedia products -- but they shut me out with the pricing.

I mean I can afford to buy them -- I just wont. I'd feel like I was taken advantage of or something. It's ridiculous when you compare Apples to PC's. Especially on the server front.

And they rub it in when you go to upgrade your system in their store -- they should be damn happy and apprciative your buying standard ram/hd & other stuff from THEM rather than a 3rd party
But noooo they wanna rub it in that your getting burned by trying to charge you 25%-100% more for these upgrades than the average price in the real world.

But don't get me wrong.. if you have money to BURN & don't feel bad when you knowingly pay too much for things --
then by all means switch (really).

ooh nice. I'd really love to go mac.. I just can't get myself to do it at store.apple.com :mad:

Ya know, at the end of last year, they tested an X-Serve against a Dell server of similar configuration in the C't, which is a very technically oriented and reputable German computer tech magazin, and they didn't like it at all. It lagged in many benchmarks behind the Dell server, and was more expensive as well...

:2 cents:

mac is expensive, but the total hardware costs for my business are very low compared to things like advertsing, content and bandwidth. so whether a new laptop or a new workstation etc costs a little more - it has absolutely no bearing on whether or not i'll buy it.

I used to think the extra money bought me alot of productivity.. well it did until I found GFY.

Since we have a pretty dedicated and successful crew of Mac folks here, please tell me, why should I give up the PC as my daily computer?

I am thinking about buying a 17" powerbook because it's cool and I have a deal but for no other reason.

Is there something I am missing? You guys do what I would do on a daily basis. Is it really worth converting my religion?

hard to explain pw. the user interface is more pleasing, it simply changes your experience of using a computer.

i think the primary advantage of mac is that it's a unix base with a very pretty and user friendly interface... with a server all i see is the shell anyways, so i cant see a lot of reason to buy apple.

must be nice to be so rich quiet :)

Yeah I mean I guess it all boils down to how productive the machine (whatever platform/os it is) is going to make you.

But me.. I like to shop around and get 'deals' & Apple isn't really known for having competitive deals. Though.. those jumbojava 23" LCD's are starting to look nice price wise. That's basically what I'm holding out for - I can't 'switch' until those 23" LCD's are reasonably priced enough to where I can slap 2 of them on my desk and clear off all my 21's :)

well said. i also think the video editing software for the mac (fcp) is superior.

lol

2 23'' inchers? GoBig, how big is your desk and what do you do that you would need 2 of them?

Yeah everyone has great things to say about Final Cut Pro for Apple, and everyone whos had an opinion about it sais it beats out Adobe Premiere hands down.

Hollywood can't be wrong I guess.

So many myths you guys seem to believe on here. There are always mac deals out there, sure if you want the latest and greatest then you are likely to pay full price, but it's that way with every manufacturer. There are plenty of mac deals to be had out there I often check out Dealmac everyday for new deals on hardware and peripherals. Just look around the price arguement doesn't hold as much water anymore. now when Apple gets on those new processors and speeds things up a bit more, then you'll all have run out of falsehoods to use as arguements.

My penis was accidentally removed during a botched tonsilectomy... having the biggest windows to virtual worlds help me compensate. :)



Actually I used to trade a lot & grew accustom to having massive amounts of deskspace. I've got 3 21"s right now.. 2/3 on my main system & 1 of the monitors runs another 3 boxes on a kvm switch.. everything has it's own purpose I spose.

Oh.. and banquet tables are the only 'desks' I need :)

Hrm... well check out www.gotapex.com When Dell has their deals they are STEALS. You can often walk away with near top of the line machines for < $400 shipped. Apple has been better on pricing lately, but PC pricing fell through the floor. There is no competition on pricing - never was.

yea, hooper is quite the mac convert, our whole office is 100% mac. network and everything. there are a couple of windows laptops around there. but we get in trouble for using them. :)

i had never used a modern mac untill i started using my new one at work. and it has its quarks. but it is unix based, has a lot of really cool software, most of which is open source. but if your a a big windows person, you better make sure you get a 2 button mouse. because the one button will fuck with you for months. all in all i like my mac a lot, and will probably be getting one for home, as my next computer purchase. its a hard transfer at first but if you just stick to it and make it work for you it will. the security is astounding and the ease of use takes some getting used to because it is soooo easy to use. and there are a lot of cool unix features built in, perl/php/sql/apache. which you CAN install on windows desktop if you want buggy bullshit. anyways i give the mac :thumbsup :thumbsup

i recently met an inside sales rep from mac. maybe should talk to him about xServe's.

final cut pro for mac is what all my friends used to use to cut thier snowboardin and bmx videos they used to produce. so its the shit from what i hear.