Apple Unveils G5 Xserve, new Xserve RAID

At Macworld Expo today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs lifted the cover on a significant upgrade to the Xserve, its line of 1U (one-unit high) rack-mount Mac OS X-based servers. The Xserve G5 features single or dual 2GHz G5 processors, a 1 GHz frontside bus for each processor, an 8 GB RAM ceiling, an 80 GB Serial ATA drive with support for up to 750 GB in three drive bays, and an optional slot-loading CD-ROM or DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo drive. In addition, the Xserve G5 offers two built-in Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, two FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports, and two full-length PCI-X expansion slots on independent buses. (PCI expansion options include video and SCSI support, additional Ethernet interfaces, an Apple Fibre Channel card, or third-party RAID support). Three configuations are available: a stripped down Cluster Node version (for distributed applications such as video rendering) with dual 2.0 GHz processors and a 10-client Mac OS X Server license, as well as more traditional Single Processor and Dual Processor configurations with unlimited client editions of Mac OS X Server.

Apple also revamped the $6,000 Xserve RAID, a 3U (three-unit high) rack-mount system which offers up to 3.5 terabytes (TB) of storage in 14 hot-swappable drive bays. The Xserve RAID connects to Xserves using a 2 Gb Fibre Channel interface. The new Xserve RAID sports throughputs of up to 210 MB/sec, and Apple also unveiled support for using the Xserve RAID with Linux and Windows systems.