FireWire 800 is absent from the MacBook not because of space considers but because Apple make a decision not to... I wish people would stop thinking its a space issue. Unless I heard "look at it -- there's no room in there" from an actual circuit board engineer...
The MacBook is targeted towards consumers, not pros (just like the iMac and Mac Mini). Peripheral device makers decided long along that FireWire is a premium port that calls for a premium price. The existing iMac already has FireWire 800 and for the most part has been ignored by the peripheral device makers. Go inside any consumer electronic store and count on one hand the number of FireWire 800 products.
Apple won't care if you have existing legacy FireWire peripherals when they introduce the new iMac/Mac Mini.
I agree with almost everything, but are you saying you think Apple would drop FW800 from the forthcoming revised iMacs in January?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the new Aluminum Unibody & Glass
iMac 20" with LED display and Nvidia 9600 GT 256MB~512MB VRAM.
Get rid of the black border around the screen and make it aluminum right to the edge of the screen and make the mouse aluminum color and you got a winner in my eyes.
FireWire 800 is absent from the MacBook not because of space considers but because Apple make a decision not to... I wish people would stop thinking its a space issue. Unless I heard "look at it -- there's no room in there" from an actual circuit board engineer...
Well, I have designed several circuit boards. I don't make a living out of it though, so I'm not necessarily an actual circuit board engineer by income. I have also worked with an actual circuit board engineer on a few projects too.
Apple's circuit boards are among the densest of the ones I see. Putting the ports too close together causes compatibility problems.
That doesn't make a bit of difference when you consider the rest of what I said. Desktop sales are flat flat FLAT. Whoop de doo if all of the major PC manufacturers revised all their models the day USB3 was available, that makes very little difference because that market is stagnant thanks to over-saturation/slack demand.
Sorry, but that doesn't make a difference. Although desktop sales are not growing year-over-year, desktops do get replaced. So one year from now (maybe 1.5 with the current economy) about 20% of desktop computers will have USB 3. All the variants of firewire together won't have anywhere near that portion. In 5 years 80% of desktop computers will have USB 3 (or 4?)
If you're a peripheral manufacturer, and you need the kind of throughput you can only get with USB 3 or FW800 or FW3200, which interface are you going to use?
FireWire 800 is absent from the MacBook not because of space considers but because Apple make a decision not to... I wish people would stop thinking its a space issue. Unless I heard "look at it -- there's no room in there" from an actual circuit board engineer...
...
Apple won't care if you have existing legacy FireWire peripherals when they introduce the new iMac/Mac Mini.
The part about non-excuse of 'there's no space for FireWire in the recent MacBook' is so right on.
The prior same-footprint-sized model had FireWire, thus there IS space both on the case and inside the case for a FireWire port.
Looking at a circuit board, and claiming that there is no space for FW - well, duh, if you remove the FW port, and then make the board smaller because you took FW off, then show a picture of the new smaller board - that is not a 'reason'.
(Do we think they just forgot it? -- engineer 1 to engineer 2: "umm, we forgot to put a FireWire port on the new MacBook -- Dang! I knew we forgot something... Oh well, gotta ship without it...")
Someone at Apple made a feature capability decision to remove FireWire, to dumb-down the MacBook, and to disenfranchise all the owners of FireWire devices (or at least to discourage them from ever buying a new MacBook). It's as plain and simple as that -- and sad.
Will that happen with the Mac Mini? Who of us knows for sure, but my guess is yes, they will apply the same dumb-it-down, shoot themselves in the foot (non)logic.
Will it happen with the iMac? this is less clear from my crystal ball seeing device...
The pattern of Apple dumbing-down, removing capability, removing ports, slowing the transfer speed of ports they do provide in the consumer and prosumer machines is sadly very long and ingrained there.
Sorry, but that doesn't make a difference. Although desktop sales are not growing year-over-year, desktops do get replaced. So one year from now (maybe 1.5 with the current economy) about 20% of desktop computers will have USB 3. All the variants of firewire together won't have anywhere near that portion. In 5 years 80% of desktop computers will have USB 3 (or 4?)
If you're a peripheral manufacturer, and you need the kind of throughput you can only get with USB 3 or FW800 or FW3200, which interface are you going to use?
USB 3 at first will likely be by add in card only also it will be new cables and jacks. Firewire FW800 / FW1600 / FW3200 all uses the same jacks and cables.
Also will you a need a $50+ usb 3.0 card with a mini cpu just to get good speed with out put a big load on the main cpu?
Sorry, but that doesn't make a difference. Although desktop sales are not growing year-over-year, desktops do get replaced. So one year from now (maybe 1.5 with the current economy) about 20% of desktop computers will have USB 3. All the variants of firewire together won't have anywhere near that portion. In 5 years 80% of desktop computers will have USB 3 (or 4?)
If you're a peripheral manufacturer, and you need the kind of throughput you can only get with USB 3 or FW800 or FW3200, which interface are you going to use?
You've just made a bunch of unfounded assumptions. Obviously, even in the flat PC market, PCs do get replaced by newer PCs. Big deal. Where are you getting 20% from and are we talking globally, in the US, what? Who can say whether that made up percentage will remain constant over the next five years? How long has it taken the PC manufacturers to move from USB1 to USB2, VGA to DVI, CRT to LCD, roller-ball mouse to optical, analog audio to digital audio (I can keep going and going and going)? Who knows if we'll even need wires 5-7 years from now for connecting our iPhones/iPods, digital cameras, printers, or what have you?
This feels an awful lot like assuming Blu-ray will inevitably be adopted by everyone simply because it feels more "familiar" for people who are transitioning from DVDs than digital distribution.
If Apple removes Firewire from the Minis, I will have bought my last Mac. At least they should include Firewire 800 for people to connect a better hard drive, given that the 2.5" drive is barely decent enough to last 2 years...
I may just get me a used Mini or a closeout model on Apple's store...
Considering it sounds like they are moving to Mini-DP they should have more than enough room for eSATA. Despite some of the eSATA bashing I have seen on this forum, adding eSATA would give users a larger selection of external HDDs to pick from and the eSATA enclosures tend to be cheaper than FW400 nevermind FW800 enclosures. Add that to the fact that unless Apple purposely f'ed it up, eSATA should perform better on some of the newer HDDs than FW and the external drive argument for FW is obsolete.
Sure this idea would alienate the small percentage of people who do AV work on a Mac Mini, but for every person who has any intention of doing AV work on a Mac Mini there are easily 50-100 people who have no intention on doing any AV work on their Mac Mini ever. For those who don't edit A/V, the FW port has LESS value than a eSATA port, nevermind that it costs Apple MORE money to have a FW controller on the board.
Before people say I don't know what I am talking about, I should note that for ~2 years I sold Mac Minis amongst other Apple products at a reseller and I can only remember one person who even tried to edit A/V with a Mac Mini and he said even with 2GB that Logic was too slow to be worth using. The vast majority of people who bought Mac Minis were either users of older lower end Macs (eg. eMac, older CRT based iMacs, etc.) who didn't need the power of the newer iMacs or Mac switchers who simply wanted to test out the Mac world without spending a fortune. My sample obviously isn't perfectly representative of overall Mac Mini users, but I don't think my guess is that far off reality.
Considering it sounds like they are moving to Mini-DP they should have more than enough room for eSATA.
Mac Pros don't even have eSATA yet. I'd say it's a low priority for Apple. I'd like it because I have some USB/eSATA drive enclosures, but I don't expect such a port on the Mac mini any time soon.
It seems to me that, along with a desktop solution in between the iMac and MacPro, the other big hole in the apple product list is an entry level server. Apple is making big inroads in the small business market, and already offers a 10 seat OS X Server option that is great for that market. But the entry level XServe is overkill on the hardware side.
What I would love to see is a slightly larger (and user accessible) Mac Mini, with a 7200 rpm desktop drive (and a 10K rpm upgrade option) and room for a second internally, FireWire800 and a couple eSata ports on the back. Keep the Intel IG and chipset, but hopefully with support for 4G of faster RAM. The enclosure would be a MacMini flavor of the Unibody to maximize the production process and make use of the case as a big heat sink. Indeed, it would look rather nice with cooling fins machined into three sides.
Bundle it with the 10 user OS X Server and you have a great entry level server for small workgroups. One that can plug in an external RAID-1 or RAID-5 array for redundant data storage, and can take a pair of inexpensive USB or FireWire portable drives for offsite backups. One that takes little space in a small office, looks great, is easily expandable, keeps Intel happy by using their IG solution, and uses (mostly) current technology to target an emerging market.
I can see a huge number of small Architecture firms using something like this. Indeed, I could see it right up front in the office, plugged in to a new 24" CD with a sound and slide show of the office's work along with server duties. First thing you see when you walk in the door. The mini DisplayPort would make room for the eSata, and most situations would see it run headless anyway.
Not holding my breath, but I know a lot of offices that could really use such a thing.
It seems to me that, along with a desktop solution in between the iMac and MacPro, the other big hole in the apple product list is an entry level server. Apple is making big inroads in the small business market, and already offers a 10 seat OS X Server option that is great for that market. But the entry level XServe is overkill on the hardware side.
What I would love to see is a slightly larger (and user accessible) Mac Mini, with a 7200 rpm desktop drive (and a 10K rpm upgrade option) and room for a second internally, FireWire800 and a couple eSata ports on the back. Keep the Intel IG and chipset, but hopefully with support for 4G of faster RAM. The enclosure would be a MacMini flavor of the Unibody to maximize the production process and make use of the case as a big heat sink. Indeed, it would look rather nice with cooling fins machined into three sides.
Bundle it with the 10 user OS X Server and you have a great entry level server for small workgroups. One that can plug in an external RAID-1 or RAID-5 array for redundant data storage, and can take a pair of inexpensive USB or FireWire portable drives for offsite backups. One that takes little space in a small office, looks great, is easily expandable, keeps Intel happy by using their IG solution, and uses (mostly) current technology to target an emerging market.
I can see a huge number of small Architecture firms using something like this. Indeed, I could see it right up front in the office, plugged in to a new 24" CD with a sound and slide show of the office's work along with server duties. First thing you see when you walk in the door. The mini DisplayPort would make room for the eSata, and most situations would see it run headless anyway.
Not holding my breath, but I know a lot of offices that could really use such a thing.
Gordon
Gordon
I can't imagine that Apple will NOT have an entry into the "Home Server" arena within the next couple of years. I think Apple will go another route though on the "Home Server" front. Microsoft has repackaged the Windows 2003 Server core into a home version but the sales if it are still insignificant. I think the problem perceived complexity. If you call something a "Server" people automatically assume it's going to be difficult to setup.
Here's what I think about how Apple would market a server.
1. They'd never use the word "server" it's sounds too complex.
2. They'd design a device that appears more like an appliance. It'd have at least 3 bays and no way of adding more storage externally. They integrate Airport Wireless right into the device and have Gigabit ports as well.
3. RAM would not be upgradable and nor would it have any other upgrade slots.
4. The storage could be JBOD(just a bunch of disks) or pooled together (likely with ZFS) with redundancy.
5. You would configure this device with an app that basically takes the management features from Apple Remote Desktop and integrates Airport and storage configuration. Setup would take 10-15 minutes on the average.
6. iLife and iTunes and other apps would enhanced to take advantage of this network storage. Other devices like the Apple TV and the iPhone would be able to stream data directly from this device.
Apple would need to keep the price at around $600 for a usable system. A 1GB time capsule runs $499 so that gives them another 200-300 dollars to spend on the beefier SoC chipset needed, more RAM and larger case.
Is it OS X server for home? Nope but it certainly would go a long way toward taking a household of 3-5 computers and backing them up safely and sharing iTunes and other media content.
I think part of Apple's motivation to drop FW400 was the power budget. They're claiming the same usage life with a smaller battery. But the FW400 spec requires provision of high current to connected drives. Meeting the power requirements was the straw that killed the FW400 port, not space.
I would like to see two things added to the iMacs:
1. A eSATA port
Besides all the technical limitations of eSATA that I find objectionable I'm not even sure stand alone external disks are Apples favored approach anymore. Rather I see them moving to networked storage devices to an even greater extent. Now adays it is hard to find a home with just one computing device, these envirunments are better "served" with a server.
Quote:
2. An Express34 slot
Slots are very important! I'm not sure express card is the right approach though. First off express card doesn't have a good rep for mechanical reliability. Second it does offfer much in the way of room for whatever I/O is being used.
Personnally I'd like to see them use a mezzazine card of some sort. Ideally the card should have a minimum of 4 PCI Express lanes. Also it must provide for a plethora of I/O connectors. Maybe even use an industry standard like Compact PCI. The problem is this; expansion cards are of little use if not reliable and easy to connect to. There are a number of possible standards in the industrial/embedded world that would work well, Apple just has to choose one.
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The first might be doable. But I doubt the second (but I would love to see it).
Dave
Funny I see it as just the opposite as an expansion slot eliminates the issue of Apple having to choose one type of port over another. With an expansion slot you can install the I/O port of your choice. The port isn't a huge physical problem for Apple either.
What may be a problem though is the issue of drivers. This would mean bringing in to the fold a lot more developers with special skills. It would also mean a lot of effort on Apples part to maintain system quality. This is probably Apples greatest fear when it comes to slots. Slots mean a lot more code to keep the quality up on when it comes to the kernel. Poor drivers would be a big negative when it comes to the publics perception of Mac OS.
I'd like to see Apple get off the pot here myself as the lack of hardware interfacing does push some projects to things like Linux. It is all part of expanding the appeal of Apple hardware to ever wider audiences. Oh by the way before someone says it-no the Mac Pro is not very attractive to us at all for these uses. Apple just needs to get smart about I/O cards.
Besides all the technical limitations of eSATA that I find objectionable I'm not even sure stand alone external disks are Apples favored approach anymore. Rather I see them moving to networked storage devices to an even greater extent. Now adays it is hard to find a home with just one computing device, these envirunments are better "served" with a server.
With Wifi enabled phones, Netbook/Nettop, game consoles and even HDTV now with network connections it's almost absurd to think about taking a storage device of any significant quantity and chaining it to one computer unless that computer can share like a server.
I really think that computers will be moving to SSD for boot partitions and the "heavy" stuff will reside on network storage. Toshiba's newly announced half terabyte SSD supposedly does 240MBps reads and nearly that in writes!
Besides all the technical limitations of eSATA that I find objectionable I'm not even sure stand alone external disks are Apples favored approach anymore. Rather I see them moving to networked storage devices to an even greater extent. Now adays it is hard to find a home with just one computing device, these envirunments are better "served" with a server.
Exactly how many technical limitations are there? I've not really had a problem with it.
As it is right now, I have one computer sharing centralized data with several others.
I can't imagine that Apple will NOT have an entry into the "Home Server" arena within the next couple of years.
I can certainly see where some form of "Home Server", likely based on the AppleTV, could be useful. And intentionally crippled as you mentioned. But I am talking about a Small Business Server. It MUST be full featured. It MUST be expandable as far as storage, if not performance. And it MUST include provisions for data redundancy and backup, including offsite backup. And all in the $1000 range for initial hardware. Given that it could all be done with a little effort on a platform that currently retails for $600, I think they could not only do it, but up their margins at the same time. And given that:
1: Small Business is where Apple is making inroads, more so than "Enterprise" business, and
2: Small Business accounts for a HUGE chunk of the economy, and
3: Small Business startups is where smart people go when their "Enterprise" jobs are killed by the economy...
I think now is a real good time to have a genuinely affordable small business solution. Not cheap, as in some $500 D(H)ell SBServer and a bunch of Vista boxes, but long term functional and affordable like most Apple products are when you look at something more than initial costs. And those little 5-10 person firms that get started with an Apple solution when it is easy and appropriate to change platforms are going to be some of the 100-200 person "Small Enterprise" companies that upgrade to Xserve and stay in the Mac fold as they grow.
I know a lot of Architects who have been laid off as the economy has tanked, who either had Macs at home or are part of that iPhone halo, who are now looking at taking some severance pay and buying a Mac and working from the house. And in not too much time they are going to need to bump up to three people in the spare room, then a small office of 5, then...
I would imagine a lot of creative professionals are the same. Hell, a little MacMini server would probably be ideal for a little developer startup doing iPhone apps too. Not so sure a laid off accountant starting a little tax business wouldn't be better served with a bunch of Apple products as well.
Mac Pros don't even have eSATA yet. I'd say it's a low priority for Apple. I'd like it because I have some USB/eSATA drive enclosures, but I don't expect such a port on the Mac mini any time soon.
Add to that Apple would likely have implemented eSATA in the redesigned MacBook Pros if they were going to start anywhere. Mac minis (and Mac Pros for that matter) are not big sellers for Apple compared to their all-in-one iMac and laptop lines.
Comments
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the new Aluminum Unibody & Glass
iMac 20" with LED display and Nvidia 9600 GT 256MB~512MB VRAM.
Nice!
If apple really loves us they'll tack on a 9800 512 MB on the 24".
Real world performance doesn't put FireWire 800 twice as fast as FireWire 400. Is it faster? Yes. But its not twice as fast. Sorry!
Ok, should have said FW800 was simply twice as fast as USB2, which would have been inline with my point. Thanks.
FireWire 800 is absent from the MacBook not because of space considers but because Apple make a decision not to... I wish people would stop thinking its a space issue. Unless I heard "look at it -- there's no room in there" from an actual circuit board engineer...
The MacBook is targeted towards consumers, not pros (just like the iMac and Mac Mini). Peripheral device makers decided long along that FireWire is a premium port that calls for a premium price. The existing iMac already has FireWire 800 and for the most part has been ignored by the peripheral device makers. Go inside any consumer electronic store and count on one hand the number of FireWire 800 products.
Apple won't care if you have existing legacy FireWire peripherals when they introduce the new iMac/Mac Mini.
I agree with almost everything, but are you saying you think Apple would drop FW800 from the forthcoming revised iMacs in January?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the new Aluminum Unibody & Glass
iMac 20" with LED display and Nvidia 9600 GT 256MB~512MB VRAM.
Get rid of the black border around the screen and make it aluminum right to the edge of the screen and make the mouse aluminum color and you got a winner in my eyes.
FireWire 800 is absent from the MacBook not because of space considers but because Apple make a decision not to... I wish people would stop thinking its a space issue. Unless I heard "look at it -- there's no room in there" from an actual circuit board engineer...
Well, I have designed several circuit boards. I don't make a living out of it though, so I'm not necessarily an actual circuit board engineer by income. I have also worked with an actual circuit board engineer on a few projects too.
Apple's circuit boards are among the densest of the ones I see. Putting the ports too close together causes compatibility problems.
That doesn't make a bit of difference when you consider the rest of what I said. Desktop sales are flat flat FLAT. Whoop de doo if all of the major PC manufacturers revised all their models the day USB3 was available, that makes very little difference because that market is stagnant thanks to over-saturation/slack demand.
Sorry, but that doesn't make a difference. Although desktop sales are not growing year-over-year, desktops do get replaced. So one year from now (maybe 1.5 with the current economy) about 20% of desktop computers will have USB 3. All the variants of firewire together won't have anywhere near that portion. In 5 years 80% of desktop computers will have USB 3 (or 4?)
If you're a peripheral manufacturer, and you need the kind of throughput you can only get with USB 3 or FW800 or FW3200, which interface are you going to use?
FireWire 800 is absent from the MacBook not because of space considers but because Apple make a decision not to... I wish people would stop thinking its a space issue. Unless I heard "look at it -- there's no room in there" from an actual circuit board engineer...
...
Apple won't care if you have existing legacy FireWire peripherals when they introduce the new iMac/Mac Mini.
The part about non-excuse of 'there's no space for FireWire in the recent MacBook' is so right on.
The prior same-footprint-sized model had FireWire, thus there IS space both on the case and inside the case for a FireWire port.
Looking at a circuit board, and claiming that there is no space for FW - well, duh, if you remove the FW port, and then make the board smaller because you took FW off, then show a picture of the new smaller board - that is not a 'reason'.
(Do we think they just forgot it? -- engineer 1 to engineer 2: "umm, we forgot to put a FireWire port on the new MacBook -- Dang! I knew we forgot something... Oh well, gotta ship without it...")
Someone at Apple made a feature capability decision to remove FireWire, to dumb-down the MacBook, and to disenfranchise all the owners of FireWire devices (or at least to discourage them from ever buying a new MacBook). It's as plain and simple as that -- and sad.
Will that happen with the Mac Mini? Who of us knows for sure, but my guess is yes, they will apply the same dumb-it-down, shoot themselves in the foot (non)logic.
Will it happen with the iMac? this is less clear from my crystal ball seeing device...
The pattern of Apple dumbing-down, removing capability, removing ports, slowing the transfer speed of ports they do provide in the consumer and prosumer machines is sadly very long and ingrained there.
One can hope that trend will change someday...
Sorry, but that doesn't make a difference. Although desktop sales are not growing year-over-year, desktops do get replaced. So one year from now (maybe 1.5 with the current economy) about 20% of desktop computers will have USB 3. All the variants of firewire together won't have anywhere near that portion. In 5 years 80% of desktop computers will have USB 3 (or 4?)
If you're a peripheral manufacturer, and you need the kind of throughput you can only get with USB 3 or FW800 or FW3200, which interface are you going to use?
USB 3 at first will likely be by add in card only also it will be new cables and jacks. Firewire FW800 / FW1600 / FW3200 all uses the same jacks and cables.
Also will you a need a $50+ usb 3.0 card with a mini cpu just to get good speed with out put a big load on the main cpu?
Sorry, but that doesn't make a difference. Although desktop sales are not growing year-over-year, desktops do get replaced. So one year from now (maybe 1.5 with the current economy) about 20% of desktop computers will have USB 3. All the variants of firewire together won't have anywhere near that portion. In 5 years 80% of desktop computers will have USB 3 (or 4?)
If you're a peripheral manufacturer, and you need the kind of throughput you can only get with USB 3 or FW800 or FW3200, which interface are you going to use?
You've just made a bunch of unfounded assumptions. Obviously, even in the flat PC market, PCs do get replaced by newer PCs. Big deal. Where are you getting 20% from and are we talking globally, in the US, what? Who can say whether that made up percentage will remain constant over the next five years? How long has it taken the PC manufacturers to move from USB1 to USB2, VGA to DVI, CRT to LCD, roller-ball mouse to optical, analog audio to digital audio (I can keep going and going and going)? Who knows if we'll even need wires 5-7 years from now for connecting our iPhones/iPods, digital cameras, printers, or what have you?
This feels an awful lot like assuming Blu-ray will inevitably be adopted by everyone simply because it feels more "familiar" for people who are transitioning from DVDs than digital distribution.
If Apple removes Firewire from the Minis, I will have bought my last Mac. At least they should include Firewire 800 for people to connect a better hard drive, given that the 2.5" drive is barely decent enough to last 2 years...
I may just get me a used Mini or a closeout model on Apple's store...
Considering it sounds like they are moving to Mini-DP they should have more than enough room for eSATA. Despite some of the eSATA bashing I have seen on this forum, adding eSATA would give users a larger selection of external HDDs to pick from and the eSATA enclosures tend to be cheaper than FW400 nevermind FW800 enclosures. Add that to the fact that unless Apple purposely f'ed it up, eSATA should perform better on some of the newer HDDs than FW and the external drive argument for FW is obsolete.
Sure this idea would alienate the small percentage of people who do AV work on a Mac Mini, but for every person who has any intention of doing AV work on a Mac Mini there are easily 50-100 people who have no intention on doing any AV work on their Mac Mini ever. For those who don't edit A/V, the FW port has LESS value than a eSATA port, nevermind that it costs Apple MORE money to have a FW controller on the board.
Before people say I don't know what I am talking about, I should note that for ~2 years I sold Mac Minis amongst other Apple products at a reseller and I can only remember one person who even tried to edit A/V with a Mac Mini and he said even with 2GB that Logic was too slow to be worth using. The vast majority of people who bought Mac Minis were either users of older lower end Macs (eg. eMac, older CRT based iMacs, etc.) who didn't need the power of the newer iMacs or Mac switchers who simply wanted to test out the Mac world without spending a fortune. My sample obviously isn't perfectly representative of overall Mac Mini users, but I don't think my guess is that far off reality.
Considering it sounds like they are moving to Mini-DP they should have more than enough room for eSATA.
Mac Pros don't even have eSATA yet. I'd say it's a low priority for Apple. I'd like it because I have some USB/eSATA drive enclosures, but I don't expect such a port on the Mac mini any time soon.
What I would love to see is a slightly larger (and user accessible) Mac Mini, with a 7200 rpm desktop drive (and a 10K rpm upgrade option) and room for a second internally, FireWire800 and a couple eSata ports on the back. Keep the Intel IG and chipset, but hopefully with support for 4G of faster RAM. The enclosure would be a MacMini flavor of the Unibody to maximize the production process and make use of the case as a big heat sink. Indeed, it would look rather nice with cooling fins machined into three sides.
Bundle it with the 10 user OS X Server and you have a great entry level server for small workgroups. One that can plug in an external RAID-1 or RAID-5 array for redundant data storage, and can take a pair of inexpensive USB or FireWire portable drives for offsite backups. One that takes little space in a small office, looks great, is easily expandable, keeps Intel happy by using their IG solution, and uses (mostly) current technology to target an emerging market.
I can see a huge number of small Architecture firms using something like this. Indeed, I could see it right up front in the office, plugged in to a new 24" CD with a sound and slide show of the office's work along with server duties. First thing you see when you walk in the door. The mini DisplayPort would make room for the eSata, and most situations would see it run headless anyway.
Not holding my breath, but I know a lot of offices that could really use such a thing.
Gordon
It seems to me that, along with a desktop solution in between the iMac and MacPro, the other big hole in the apple product list is an entry level server. Apple is making big inroads in the small business market, and already offers a 10 seat OS X Server option that is great for that market. But the entry level XServe is overkill on the hardware side.
What I would love to see is a slightly larger (and user accessible) Mac Mini, with a 7200 rpm desktop drive (and a 10K rpm upgrade option) and room for a second internally, FireWire800 and a couple eSata ports on the back. Keep the Intel IG and chipset, but hopefully with support for 4G of faster RAM. The enclosure would be a MacMini flavor of the Unibody to maximize the production process and make use of the case as a big heat sink. Indeed, it would look rather nice with cooling fins machined into three sides.
Bundle it with the 10 user OS X Server and you have a great entry level server for small workgroups. One that can plug in an external RAID-1 or RAID-5 array for redundant data storage, and can take a pair of inexpensive USB or FireWire portable drives for offsite backups. One that takes little space in a small office, looks great, is easily expandable, keeps Intel happy by using their IG solution, and uses (mostly) current technology to target an emerging market.
I can see a huge number of small Architecture firms using something like this. Indeed, I could see it right up front in the office, plugged in to a new 24" CD with a sound and slide show of the office's work along with server duties. First thing you see when you walk in the door. The mini DisplayPort would make room for the eSata, and most situations would see it run headless anyway.
Not holding my breath, but I know a lot of offices that could really use such a thing.
Gordon
Gordon
I can't imagine that Apple will NOT have an entry into the "Home Server" arena within the next couple of years. I think Apple will go another route though on the "Home Server" front. Microsoft has repackaged the Windows 2003 Server core into a home version but the sales if it are still insignificant. I think the problem perceived complexity. If you call something a "Server" people automatically assume it's going to be difficult to setup.
I kind of hinted at a Home Server without actually calling it a server here
Here's what I think about how Apple would market a server.
1. They'd never use the word "server" it's sounds too complex.
2. They'd design a device that appears more like an appliance. It'd have at least 3 bays and no way of adding more storage externally. They integrate Airport Wireless right into the device and have Gigabit ports as well.
3. RAM would not be upgradable and nor would it have any other upgrade slots.
4. The storage could be JBOD(just a bunch of disks) or pooled together (likely with ZFS) with redundancy.
5. You would configure this device with an app that basically takes the management features from Apple Remote Desktop and integrates Airport and storage configuration. Setup would take 10-15 minutes on the average.
6. iLife and iTunes and other apps would enhanced to take advantage of this network storage. Other devices like the Apple TV and the iPhone would be able to stream data directly from this device.
Apple would need to keep the price at around $600 for a usable system. A 1GB time capsule runs $499 so that gives them another 200-300 dollars to spend on the beefier SoC chipset needed, more RAM and larger case.
Is it OS X server for home? Nope but it certainly would go a long way toward taking a household of 3-5 computers and backing them up safely and sharing iTunes and other media content.
Will it happen with the iMac? this is less clear from my crystal ball seeing device...
I would like to see two things added to the iMacs:
1. A eSATA port
2. An Express34 slot
The first might be doable. But I doubt the second (but I would love to see it).
Dave
I would like to see two things added to the iMacs:
1. A eSATA port
Besides all the technical limitations of eSATA that I find objectionable I'm not even sure stand alone external disks are Apples favored approach anymore. Rather I see them moving to networked storage devices to an even greater extent. Now adays it is hard to find a home with just one computing device, these envirunments are better "served" with a server.
2. An Express34 slot
Slots are very important! I'm not sure express card is the right approach though. First off express card doesn't have a good rep for mechanical reliability. Second it does offfer much in the way of room for whatever I/O is being used.
Personnally I'd like to see them use a mezzazine card of some sort. Ideally the card should have a minimum of 4 PCI Express lanes. Also it must provide for a plethora of I/O connectors. Maybe even use an industry standard like Compact PCI. The problem is this; expansion cards are of little use if not reliable and easy to connect to. There are a number of possible standards in the industrial/embedded world that would work well, Apple just has to choose one.
The first might be doable. But I doubt the second (but I would love to see it).
Dave
Funny I see it as just the opposite as an expansion slot eliminates the issue of Apple having to choose one type of port over another. With an expansion slot you can install the I/O port of your choice. The port isn't a huge physical problem for Apple either.
What may be a problem though is the issue of drivers. This would mean bringing in to the fold a lot more developers with special skills. It would also mean a lot of effort on Apples part to maintain system quality. This is probably Apples greatest fear when it comes to slots. Slots mean a lot more code to keep the quality up on when it comes to the kernel. Poor drivers would be a big negative when it comes to the publics perception of Mac OS.
I'd like to see Apple get off the pot here myself as the lack of hardware interfacing does push some projects to things like Linux. It is all part of expanding the appeal of Apple hardware to ever wider audiences. Oh by the way before someone says it-no the Mac Pro is not very attractive to us at all for these uses. Apple just needs to get smart about I/O cards.
Dave
Besides all the technical limitations of eSATA that I find objectionable I'm not even sure stand alone external disks are Apples favored approach anymore. Rather I see them moving to networked storage devices to an even greater extent. Now adays it is hard to find a home with just one computing device, these envirunments are better "served" with a server.
With Wifi enabled phones, Netbook/Nettop, game consoles and even HDTV now with network connections it's almost absurd to think about taking a storage device of any significant quantity and chaining it to one computer unless that computer can share like a server.
I really think that computers will be moving to SSD for boot partitions and the "heavy" stuff will reside on network storage. Toshiba's newly announced half terabyte SSD supposedly does 240MBps reads and nearly that in writes!
http://www.simmtester.com/page/news/....asp?num=11684
Whether the mini survives long or not I guarantee you a Mac mini with Core i7 chips and an SSD would blow your mind.
Besides all the technical limitations of eSATA that I find objectionable I'm not even sure stand alone external disks are Apples favored approach anymore. Rather I see them moving to networked storage devices to an even greater extent. Now adays it is hard to find a home with just one computing device, these envirunments are better "served" with a server.
Exactly how many technical limitations are there? I've not really had a problem with it.
As it is right now, I have one computer sharing centralized data with several others.
Gordon
I can't imagine that Apple will NOT have an entry into the "Home Server" arena within the next couple of years.
I can certainly see where some form of "Home Server", likely based on the AppleTV, could be useful. And intentionally crippled as you mentioned. But I am talking about a Small Business Server. It MUST be full featured. It MUST be expandable as far as storage, if not performance. And it MUST include provisions for data redundancy and backup, including offsite backup. And all in the $1000 range for initial hardware. Given that it could all be done with a little effort on a platform that currently retails for $600, I think they could not only do it, but up their margins at the same time. And given that:
1: Small Business is where Apple is making inroads, more so than "Enterprise" business, and
2: Small Business accounts for a HUGE chunk of the economy, and
3: Small Business startups is where smart people go when their "Enterprise" jobs are killed by the economy...
I think now is a real good time to have a genuinely affordable small business solution. Not cheap, as in some $500 D(H)ell SBServer and a bunch of Vista boxes, but long term functional and affordable like most Apple products are when you look at something more than initial costs. And those little 5-10 person firms that get started with an Apple solution when it is easy and appropriate to change platforms are going to be some of the 100-200 person "Small Enterprise" companies that upgrade to Xserve and stay in the Mac fold as they grow.
I know a lot of Architects who have been laid off as the economy has tanked, who either had Macs at home or are part of that iPhone halo, who are now looking at taking some severance pay and buying a Mac and working from the house. And in not too much time they are going to need to bump up to three people in the spare room, then a small office of 5, then...
I would imagine a lot of creative professionals are the same. Hell, a little MacMini server would probably be ideal for a little developer startup doing iPhone apps too. Not so sure a laid off accountant starting a little tax business wouldn't be better served with a bunch of Apple products as well.
Crossed fingers
Gordon
Mac Pros don't even have eSATA yet. I'd say it's a low priority for Apple. I'd like it because I have some USB/eSATA drive enclosures, but I don't expect such a port on the Mac mini any time soon.
Add to that Apple would likely have implemented eSATA in the redesigned MacBook Pros if they were going to start anywhere. Mac minis (and Mac Pros for that matter) are not big sellers for Apple compared to their all-in-one iMac and laptop lines.