Briefly: Xeon Xserves slip; iMac and Mac Pro gain options

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Though now available for pre-order, Apple's Xeon Xserves won't arrive until the middle of next month. Meanwhile, the company has added 750GB drive options to a couple of its desktop lines. And a prestigious market research firm says it doesn't see Microsoft's Zune (especially the brown model) posing any threat to the iPod.



Xeon Xserve availability pushed back



Apple on Wednesday began accepting pre-orders for its quad-core Intel Xeon-based Xserve rack-mount severs, which were first announced during the company's World Wide Developers Conference in early August.



Upon announcing the systems, Apple estimated delivery during the month of October but has since pushed their release out by several weeks to the middle of November.



The standard $3000 configuration includes two 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Xeon, 1GB (2x512MB) of 667MHz DDR2 fully buffered ECC RAM, an 80GB Serial ATA ADM at 7200-rpm, a 24x Combo (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) and an ATI Radeon X1300 64MB SDRAM with VGA Adapter.



Customers may custom-configure the servers with up to 31 additional gigabytes of RAM, a 750GB ATA drive (or 300GB SAS ADM at 15,000-rpm) in each of 3 drive bays, and an 8x SuperDrive DL (DVD+R DL/DVD + RW/CD-RW) amongst various other PCI Express expansion cards.



The quad-core Xeon Xserve can also be configured with two 2.66GHz dual-core processors for an additional $800 or two 3.0GHz dual-core chips for a whopping $1800 premium.



24-inch iMac and Mac Pro gain storage options



Meanwhile, Apple has quietly added a $400 750GB Serial ATA Drive option to its top-of-the-line 24-inch iMac offering.



Come 2007, it's likely the all-in-one desktops will be the first consumer Mac to offer a full terabyte of storage space, providing plenty of space for all those iTunes movies Apple hopes to sell.



Similarly, it's also now possible to configured each of the Mac Pro's four drive bays with 750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA drives ($600 each) for a total of 3 terabytes of storage.



Another firm downplays Zune



Earlier this week, market research firm JupiterResearch in a report said Microsoft's forthcoming Zune player will not significantly impact Apple's iPod market share.



The firm also concluded that mobile phone players are not a threat to Apple's iPod dominance because most customers are not interested in wireless music downloads. On the other hand, it expects handheld media player shipments to nearly triple over the next five years.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    First!
  • Reply 2 of 18
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    I wonder which 750GB drive are they using. Is there something special about this particular drive that took so long to use it.
  • Reply 3 of 18
    I'd just like to start a new rumour

    - my guess is that the reason for the delay is so that they can get the Quad Cores (Clovertown) in as a BTO for when it finally ships!



    Sounds plausible?



  • Reply 4 of 18
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell


    I wonder which 750GB drive are they using. Is there something special about this particular drive that took so long to use it.



    My guess is, a new drive enters the market and they want to be sure they are able to stress test it enough so it will not have a high failure rate. Maybe they also want to make sure there are enough of them in the supply channel so that they can meet the demand. Just two possibilities.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Feynman


    My guess is, a new drive enters the market and they want to be sure they are able to stress test it enough so it will not have a high failure rate. Maybe they also want to make sure there are enough of them in the supply channel so that they can meet the demand. Just two possibilities.



    Or a new drive came out that holds 750GB. and Apple wanted to offer this feature to its consumers. Perhaps we're analyzing a bit too much.........
  • Reply 6 of 18
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ThinkExpensive


    Or a new drive came out that holds 750GB. and Apple wanted to offer this feature to its consumers. Perhaps we're analyzing a bit too much.........



    Perhaps there have been 750GB drives out for a while now, but we've deluded ourselves into thinking that if Apple doesn't offer something on their online store (for two hundred bucks more than list price, no less), it doesn't exist.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    eduardoeduardo Posts: 181member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Placebo


    Perhaps there have been 750GB drives out for a while now, but we've deluded ourselves into thinking that if Apple doesn't offer something on their online store (for two hundred bucks more than list price, no less), it doesn't exist.



    My question: since the iMac 750GB HD is overpriced, how easy (difficult) is it to replace the HD that comes standard?
  • Reply 8 of 18
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eduardo


    My question: since the iMac 750GB HD is overpriced, how easy (difficult) is it to replace the HD that comes standard?



    It looks like a pretty hard task. There are probably instructions somewhere that you can find, but I don't see any instructions from Apple, which isn't a good sign.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Feynman


    My guess is, a new drive enters the market and they want to be sure they are able to stress test it enough so it will not have a high failure rate. Maybe they also want to make sure there are enough of them in the supply channel so that they can meet the demand. Just two possibilities.



    There was a performance issue with some versions of that size drives uncovered by Barefeats, there may have been some time needed to get that resolved.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ThinkExpensive


    Or a new drive came out that holds 750GB. and Apple wanted to offer this feature to its consumers. Perhaps we're analyzing a bit too much.........



    759GB drives have been out for a while now, and Apple is late in offering them.



    They probably have been compatability testing. Some web sites as well as a big Mac usergroup that also does extensive testing has found that not all drives work equally on the Mac Pro, the Seagate, for example, has had problems.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Placebo


    Perhaps there have been 750GB drives out for a while now, but we've deluded ourselves into thinking that if Apple doesn't offer something on their online store (for two hundred bucks more than list price, no less), it doesn't exist.



    One of the first questions that was brought up at the Mac Pro's introduction was why Apple was saying 2 TB, rather than 3TB. It seemed strange. So the drives were tested, and some problems ensued.



    Apple is always silent, as we know, about what they are NOT doing.



    So, yes, if Apple does not announce it, it doesn't exist.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    celcocelco Posts: 211member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ai51240


    First!





    An yet you are the weakest link... goodbye.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    ^^^Excellent.



    That's a lot of storage, particularly in the Mac Pro, 3TB, god....!
  • Reply 13 of 18
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross


    Some web sites as well as a big Mac usergroup that also does extensive testing has found that not all drives work equally on the Mac Pro, the Seagate, for example, has had problems.



    Do you remember where you saw the reports of Seagate drives not playing well with the Mac Pro? I would appreciate a link if you have it.



    Thanks.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    demenasdemenas Posts: 109member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell


    I wonder which 750GB drive are they using. Is there something special about this particular drive that took so long to use it.



    Nothing special about it, I popped one into my Mac Pro soon after I got it. (Seagate).



    Steve
  • Reply 15 of 18
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by donebylee


    Do you remember where you saw the reports of Seagate drives not playing well with the Mac Pro? I would appreciate a link if you have it.



    http://barefeats.com/quad08.html

    http://barefeats.com/quad07.html



    Some of it's more obvious than others, but it was pretty abysmal. Which is unfortunate because I do happen to like Seagate drives.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM


    http://barefeats.com/quad08.html

    http://barefeats.com/quad07.html



    Some of it's more obvious than others, but it was pretty abysmal. Which is unfortunate because I do happen to like Seagate drives.



    Thanks for taking the initiative in supplying that. I just got to his post now.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross


    Thanks for taking the initiative in supplying that. I just got to his post now.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM


    http://barefeats.com/quad08.html

    http://barefeats.com/quad07.html



    Some of it's more obvious than others, but it was pretty abysmal. Which is unfortunate because I do happen to like Seagate drives.



    Thanks for the links and the insight. I was going to go for the seagate perpendicular drives, but now it looks like the maxtors are the better drives.



    Curious...didn't seagate just buy maxtor?
  • Reply 18 of 18
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by donebylee


    Thanks for the links and the insight. I was going to go for the seagate perpendicular drives, but now it looks like the maxtors are the better drives.



    Curious...didn't seagate just buy maxtor?



    Yes. they will keep most of the lines, and have Maxtor as the lower cost brand.
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