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Xserve Refresh Coming Within the Next Week or Two?

Tuesday March 31, 2009 8:28 am PDT by Eric Slivka
AppleInsider reports that Apple may release updated versions of its Xserve rackmountable server computers within the next few weeks. The new models are expected to utilize new Intel Xeon 3500 "Bloomfield" processors, as well as the same Xeon 5500 "Gainestown" processors found in the new Mac Pro but only officially introduced yesterday.

New models, should they follow the same configuration format, would therefore include a single processor model capable of accepting 2.66GHz, 2.93GHz, and 3.2GHz quad-core Bloomfield chips and a dual-pocessor model that would take two 2.26GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz, or 2.93GHz quad-core Gainestown chips.

"Gainestown" is also available in 2.4GHz, 2.53GHz, and 3.2GHz variants, though Apple has expressed little interest in these parts thus far.

AppleInsider notes that Apple's online store is showing shipping times of 5-7 business days for the Xserve, down from a 1-2 week window offered late last week, suggesting that a refresh may be just around the corner. Apple Store representatives are also reportedly informing Xserve customers of possible short-term delays to their orders.
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Santabean2000
38 months ago
Sweet. Now if only I had a use for this...
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fleshman03
38 months ago
YaY! Apple Servers!

Yeah, a use would be nice.... (for me)
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talkingfuture
38 months ago
I think many people are reading this thinking wow that is awesome, wish I needed one!
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BTW
38 months ago
It is nice to see Apple still cares about the enterprise markets. They still don't have a blade solution like all of their competitors but an updated xServe at least states they want to stay in the market.
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zombitronic
38 months ago
I hope the storage capacity is significantly increased. 6TB (with three 2TB drives) would be nice.
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edesignuk
38 months ago
I'd love to know the sales figures on the Xserve. They must be minuscule. It's hard to believe the whole line is worth bothering with at all.
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The Tall One
38 months ago
I work in server rooms for clients all over the world, and only once did I see a rack full of xservs and xraids. I'm curious about how many customers Apple has for these products. They are great for large final cut editing suites in post production facilities, but I can't imagine that there are really that many of those in existence.
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Schizoid
38 months ago
Rejoice, for Apple's finest computer is being updated!
Hopefully they'll keep 2 x FW 800 in the back!
Fibre Channel should be as standard!!
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haravikk
38 months ago

I hope the storage capacity is significantly increased. 6TB (with three 2TB drives) would be nice.

Apple probably won't offer these by default, but you can always buy them yourself surely? Are the Apple Drive Modules not just special cases for hot-plugging? I'd be surprised if you can't just fire a load of drives from elsewhere into the machine.

I may be getting a dedicated server-machine some time in the future, and XServes are on the top of my list of possibilities, I'd probably go for the middle model (whatever the minimum dual-processor set-up is) and put a RAID card in and three good-sized, high-speed SAS drives.
I'll need to investigate where to get RAM I suppose, as the Apple RAM prices on the current XServe models are pretty ridiculous as it is, I got 8gb of the same type of RAM for my "Early 2008" Mac Pro and it only set me back $400-500 yet they still want $1400 for 6gb?
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themoonisdown09
38 months ago

I'd love to know the sales figures on the Xserve. They must be minuscule. It's hard to believe the whole line is worth bothering with at all.


I'm sure Disney and Pixar use them!
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