Apple Powermac expansion chassis coming soon

aphelion

Today I came across some Apple internal information that an expansion chassis is under development. This explains why the new G5 towers are offered with seemingly "limited" expansion capabilities.



No details about this new product were offered, other than it will be using a PCI-X card to connect, but it's development was confirmed from a direct Apple source (that will remain nameless). This is not a result of getting an Apple employee drunk to spill the beans as is JYD's favorite style, but a very credible source within Apple.



So what might be in this new Apple box? Certainly it will offer additional PCI-X slots, but I believe [speculation] that it will also offer optical drive capability as well as hardware RAID and probably up to four SATA drives in a high speed array.



This will be a middle step for those that need these features without the expense of an xRaid disk array, and offer additional optical capabilities for those that must have second (or even 3rd) optical drives.



Anybody else have any ideas as to how Apple could make this expansion chassis innovative?



Aphelion ...



edit: PCI-X cards

jll

There will be one expansion chassis for PCI and one for optical drives.

moogs

I'm not sure I understand the concept of an "expansion chassis". Does it fit inside the box? If so, where does it go? Seems to me the thing people are most concerned about is lack of additional drive bays (only 2 AFAICT). Would these expansion thingies allow a person to add a SATA card and clip in extra drives or something similar?

vinney57

I can't really see the point in this unless there is some 'Apple Magic' to it. Indigita do a 4 x 800FW PCIx expansion card that makes external drive RAIDs feasible. Do people still need loads of PCI slots? AJA IO makes internal video capture cards redundant. Even Digidesign and Avid (spit ) are moving Firewire.

aphelion

Quote:

Originally posted by JLL

There will be one expansion chassis for PCI and one for optical drives.

Hmmn ... Interesting. Modular? Stackable?



2Gb Fibre Channel interface? That would make separating the RAID array and optical (CD & DVD) drives more cost effective than an "all in one" box. Front access hot swappable drives like the Xserve RAID drives would be that "Apple Magic"



Wouldn't the PCI slots and optical drives go well together? If it were just optical drives wouldn't Firewire suffice?



Aphelion ...

placebo

I'm thinking kind of like this.

aphelion

Quote:

Originally posted by Placebo

I'm thinking kind of like this:

Actually less than half of that, say four drives.



Aphelion ...

hmurchison

I doubt the expansion Chassis will contain PCI-X cards. There are simply not enough PCI-X cards out there. I believe Apple may have chosen PCI-X with this expansion box in mind. PCI-X contains the necessary bandwidth to run multiple cards without running out of juice.



I think it would make sense to make a small expansion box with an additional 4 PCI and 2 Optical bays. The could make something a little larger than a Cube for this. I don't think they would offer HD Internal Bays because a Raid just makes more sense to those with extraordinary Storage needs.



Check this out. Wonder what performance is going to be like.

Quote:

I stand corrected about an expansion box containing PCI-X slots.

Aphelion...not at all. Your post is just as valid as mine. I'm sure Apple could use PCI-X in the chassis as well. I just wonder how much they will use PCI-X when PCI will start moving to PCI Express next year.

aphelion

Quote:

Originally posted by hmurchison

I doubt the expansion Chassis will contain PCI-X cards... I think it would make sense to make a small expansion box with an additional 4 PCI and 2 Optical bays... a Raid just makes more sense to those with extraordinary Storage needs.

I stand corrected about an expansion box containing PCI-X slots. I hope that came in there after [speculation] in my post. PCI-X as the interface was part of the information I received. That might imply a PCI-X Fibre Channel card .



Seems logical speculation to assume two expansion boxes then. I wonder what kind of "Apple Magic" Mr. Ives can come up with a pleasing, practical design.



Aphelion ...

macgregor

It would be cool for Apple to come up with a kind of consumer swapable harddrive box with zero configuration - maybe an iRAID.....but I'm skeptical.



Something like this would be great for the iMac too, if it ever got PCI-X capability. Suddenly iMacs could be as expandible as PowerMacs!!.....but I'm skeptical.



On other threads, the real problem is not with new folks to the PowerMac, but poeple with 4 drives who need to somehow squeeze into the new G5 case. Also the upgrade path for some would be smoother getting smaller drives, but more of them. These are mostly financial considerations and a new chassis is just another expense for these folks so for that reason ..... I'm also skeptical.



BUT I LOVE THE IDEA!!! WHY?



Because if they can put the right ports in a POWERBOOK, Apple will not only be able to tout the PB's as desktop replacements, but also (almost) workstation replacements. Every Powerbook can be hooked up to the office iRAID/iPCIbox/iWhatever. Talk about a new vision for the old Duo days!!!



And if this new chassis could act as an Airport basestation...okay, getting alittle crazy now. Anyway it would be great for the prosumer who wants a home server system and is willing to pay for it .... but I'm skeptical.

moogs

Ah. I see what you guys are talking about now. I've seen those iMac expansion packs before. I wonder how such an expansion product will work / look along side a G5 though. It would have to be narrow and tall I suppose and just sort of "stand" next to the G5.



I also think that an extra optical and hard drive bay would be by far the biggest areas of demand for such a device. Maybe a couple extra Firewire ports.

aphelion

How about a "digital hub" with hot swappable bays that allow you to put in optical drives, hard drives, tape drives, or even Zip drives (how retro, but all my macs have them) along with 3 PCI slots. Options include an "All in Wonder" type card with PVR/TiVo capabilities and that's the missing "spoke" in Steve Jobs' vision.



Aphelion ...

jante99

Quote:

Originally posted by MacGregor



Because if they can put the right ports in a POWERBOOK, Apple will not only be able to tout the PB's as desktop replacements, but also (almost) workstation replacements. Every Powerbook can be hooked up to the office iRAID/iPCIbox/iWhatever. Talk about a new vision for the old Duo days!!!



And if this new chassis could act as an Airport basestation...okay, getting alittle crazy now. Anyway it would be great for the prosumer who wants a home server system and is willing to pay for it .... but I'm skeptical.

PCI-X Card Bus slot? Does it exist?



What Apple could do is create an external HyperTransport interconnect to directly connect the expansion chassis to the motherboard. (Apple.com says the PCI-X operates at a maximum of 2GBps, while hypertransport is 3.2GBps)



Maybe create a special port for use on Powerbooks and Power Macs?

amorph

I can't help mentioning that Think Secret posted a rumor a few years ago that these things were being designed as companions for the Cube.



I think we're a couple of generations away from the sort of expansion module that you guys are thinking of. The logical interface for that is not PCMCIA (which has very low bandwidth) but FireWire. Of course, FireWIre isn't quite fiery enough yet: PCI-X can sling around 2GB/s, which adds up to a lot of SATA and PCI busses. It'll be years before FireWIre gets near that (FW800 can handle 100MB/s - 5% as much).



I could see smaller, FireWire based expansion options for PowerBooks, scaled down to FW's lower bandwidth, but only after FW gets to 1600 or 3200 Mb/s.



PCI-X is not going to appear in a PowerBook or an Apple consumer desktop (unless Apple offers a little headless number). It's too big and hot for either.



(I suppose Apple could come up with a custom connector, but there's not a lot of room left on the back of the PowerBook, is there?)

kickaha

Feh. You guys aren't thinking big enough.



There's another technology just *sitting* there that would provide insane speeds and much further reaching possibilities.



HyperTransport.



Now, now, before you get your panties in a twist, HT allows for 0.5 *meter* connections. Between boards.



Imagine a rack of Xserves... they're not 20 computers with 2CPUs each, talking over weenie Fibre Channel, no, no, no... they're *ONE* computer with 40CPUs. Chain the HT, and voila... scalable SMP out the wazoo.



Beowulf clusters can kiss this idea's tchukas.



What does this have to do with an expansion chassis? Plenty. Just plug that chassis into the HT, and it becomes an extension of the motherboard itself. Slick, eh?

amorph

Quote:

Originally posted by Kickaha

Feh. You guys aren't thinking big enough.



There's another technology just *sitting* there that would provide insane speeds and much further reaching possibilities.



HyperTransport.

The last time I checked, HT didn't have an external connector. So I sort of implied that in the "custom connector" idea.



Certainly, if Apple could pull this off they'd open up possibilities that nobody'd even thought of.

Quote:

What does this have to do with an expansion chassis? Plenty. Just plug that chassis into the HT, and it becomes an extension of the motherboard itself. Slick, eh?

Yup. You still have to design the physical plug, and make sure it and the cabling is capable of handling 6.4GB/s reliably, but it's certainly doable.

aphelion

Quote:

Originally posted by Kickaha

...HyperTransport... HT allows for 0.5 *meter* connections.



What does this have to do with an expansion chassis? ... Just plug that chassis into the HT, and it becomes an extension of the motherboard itself.

Apple is using a PCI-X card to connect the expansion unit to the Power Mac. Are there any PCI-X HyperTransport boards? Is it technically feasible?



Wouldn't 19.5 inches be a bit limiting as to placement? That would force the box to sit right next to the main enclosure.



Aphelion ...

marcus

I really, really like this idea... and it makes sense looking at the specs and proposed uses of the G5 machine.



All peoples objections to the machine could be answered in one swift move... very interesting indeed.



(There was a similar 3rd party expansion box sold a few years back, meant for a G4, I'll try and track the specs down and report back...)

amorph

Quote:

Originally posted by Aphelion

Apple is using a PCI-X card to connect the expansion unit to the Power Mac. Are there any PCI-X HyperTransport boards? Is it technically feasible?

You'd be piping a 6.4GB/s bus through a 2GB/s bus, which would work, in sort of the same way that MaxBus works...

Quote:

Wouldn't 19.5 inches be a bit limiting as to placement? That would force the box to sit right next to the main enclosure.

For a high-bandwidth motherboard connection technology, 19.5 inches is outrageously long. Basically, anything connected with HT becomes part of the machine, quite literally; it doesn't make sense to treat it as external from a performance or systems POV. So, if it's right next to the physical machine, that's appropriate.



I'm going to be dreaming of HT-connected Xserves for months now. Now that is one way to do NUMA!

carson o'genic

Does the HT cabling work over serial connections? For instance, in the rack of 20 Xserves that was mentioned, the 19.5 inch conection is enough to go from one Xserve to another, but can 19 concatenate conections be made to link 20 Xserves at HT speeds?

gsxrboy

So would it be feasible to have external HT CPU boxes then.. need more power, stick another chip in the CPU expansion box ???