Apple X’s out Xserves

November 5, 2010 By Geoff Duncan

So much for Mac OS X in data centers and enterprise: Apple is discontinuing its Xserve rackable servers in favor of a repurposed version of its Mac Pro tower.

For years Apple has been encouraging enterprise, scientific computing, and data center customers to adopt Mac OS X and Macintosh hardware in the form of Xserves, rack-mountable server units. However, those days are drawing to a close: Apple has revealed (PDF) that it does not plan to develop future versions of its Xserve hardware, and will stop selling existing Xserve units as of January 31, 2011. After that, users looking for Mac OS X server hardware will be limited to a version of the Mac mini with Mac OS X Server installed, or a new repurposed version of Apple’s Mac Pro tower, for expanded storage and processing options.

Apple says it will honor all Xserve warranties (which run for three years) and support programs, and plans to make service parts available for five years (seven years in the case of California customers).

Apple correctly claims that its high-end Mac Pro tower—with 12 cores of Intel Xeon processing—outperforms the Xserve line, and is available with 512 GB of solid state storage; furthermore, users concerned about power consumption should look at the Mac mini servers, which are currently powered by 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs and sip just 11 watts when idle. However, neither system is particularly suitable for customers looking to park Mac OS X hardware in data centers or other hosting facilities, which often rely on systems being rack-mountable with consistent cooling profiles, having accessible components, and having all critical ports accessible to “crash carts” with displays and other peripherals. Although there are companies that specialize in Mac hosting—including macminicolo—Apple’s decision is likely to have a significant impact on the adoption of Mac OS X Server in enterprises, and reduce the appeal of Apple systems for scientific computing and data center use.

Showing 7 comments

Apple car blows at 10:46am 5th November 2010 I had several Xserves in house and they were in production. When I had a problem and found that apple care was clueless on how to repair my Xserve, I ended up buying parts from ebay and repairing the device in house. Enterprise support was a joke and really non existent as far as I am concerned. Good job on stopping production on a device they cant repair or warranty. Needless to say no xserve in house any longer.
Glen Harvey at 10:39am 5th November 2010 Well once again apple has made a decision that demomstrates it's inability to help education and enterprise level customers. I fouhgt for years for Apple here on the college campus but Apple consistantly demonstrated it's inability to play with the big boys in the enterprise education model and now ALL Apple computers have been removed from campus. Way to go Apple.......
1. slayerrule at 11:03am 5th November 2010 good job college!
2. nell at 11:51am 5th November 2010 apple? engineering? hahahahhahahahah! How do you have engineering without engineers?
guessticator at 10:28am 5th November 2010 It's obvious that they are rethinking the computer biz all together. They are building out their media program plan. No insight here, but my bet is that they'll jettison the computer side of the biz. They'll still be into very high quality engineering, don't get me wrong, but it will be more consumer oriented and less open to outside developers. We'll see what happens with media acquisitions. - Message sent from my Android
Joe Mama at 10:23am 5th November 2010 Oh snap!
ararea at 10:10am 5th November 2010 This is BIG news...to all 3 of those Darwin Award winning iTards that bought xServe, whatever that is. -This message was sent from my Android.