Thu, Jan 3, 2008, 6:46pm
Xserve and What I Want
Computers » Web Serving
W
hat I want is to have my own current-generation Xserve running Leopard Server co-located someplace and attached to a fat pipeline. That what I want. This is much more than I need, but this is my id talking today. What stops me always is the price. I haven't looked in a while. Time to take a look…
Going to the Apple store, I see the Xserve starts at $3k. Woof. it's got two 2Ghz dual-core Xeon processors (less than my work-a-day Mac, but I'm sure plenty for serving), 1.33Ghz front-side bus, 1GB of RAM, 80G drive, and Leopard Server with an unlimited license, which is less limited than I need. This model is about a year old now, so if I bought an Xserve at all, I'd expect it to have all these specs bumped up for the same price.
Of course, 1GB of RAM is too little. OWC offers another 4GB of RAM for $165. 5GB is a nice prime number. I'd stick with that for a while. As far as a 2nd hard drive, I could always add a half-terabyte drive for about $150. The default optical drive is fine. I'd be tempted to go without a graphic card, but that only saves $50, a drop in the bucket of money this is costing so far. Dual power supply? Um. Punt (for now). … There seems no way to downgrade the server …
Gaaah. This is just way too much money.
I ran across a post on RoughlyDrafted about a possible Xserve Mini . Geez would that be nice.
I guess I could just get a little MacMini. It's good enough for what I do. It's more important for me to get a faster line than a faster machine. Let me price that up…
$800 for a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 1G RAM + 120G drive, $150 for AppleCare. Adding another 1G of RAM adds $60. This is a huge limit here: 2G RAM. A deal breaker? If I'm going to cough up $1k, this might be a good indication that this isn't the way to spend it.
Sigh. Thoughts? (apart from "get a Linux server" -- I want to do Mac-specific server stuff)
Perhaps MacWorld can surprise me with something new here.
Going to the Apple store, I see the Xserve starts at $3k. Woof. it's got two 2Ghz dual-core Xeon processors (less than my work-a-day Mac, but I'm sure plenty for serving), 1.33Ghz front-side bus, 1GB of RAM, 80G drive, and Leopard Server with an unlimited license, which is less limited than I need. This model is about a year old now, so if I bought an Xserve at all, I'd expect it to have all these specs bumped up for the same price.
Of course, 1GB of RAM is too little. OWC offers another 4GB of RAM for $165. 5GB is a nice prime number. I'd stick with that for a while. As far as a 2nd hard drive, I could always add a half-terabyte drive for about $150. The default optical drive is fine. I'd be tempted to go without a graphic card, but that only saves $50, a drop in the bucket of money this is costing so far. Dual power supply? Um. Punt (for now). … There seems no way to downgrade the server …
Gaaah. This is just way too much money.
I ran across a post on RoughlyDrafted about a possible Xserve Mini . Geez would that be nice.
I guess I could just get a little MacMini. It's good enough for what I do. It's more important for me to get a faster line than a faster machine. Let me price that up…
$800 for a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 1G RAM + 120G drive, $150 for AppleCare. Adding another 1G of RAM adds $60. This is a huge limit here: 2G RAM. A deal breaker? If I'm going to cough up $1k, this might be a good indication that this isn't the way to spend it.
Sigh. Thoughts? (apart from "get a Linux server" -- I want to do Mac-specific server stuff)
Perhaps MacWorld can surprise me with something new here.