shortly after releasing the Mac Pro Apple delivered on their promise
of a
rack-mountable version of the same machine naturally immediately the web
absolutely lit up with speculation that
Apple was finally creating a spiritual successor to their xserve lineup of
servers and maybe even macOS server
could this the apples triumphant return to the data center no that that's not
happening Apple is 100% laser focused on
building cloud services that actually don't even run on their own hardware and
nothing about this machine changes that so let's take a look at this and find
out why Apple saw fit to create a
rackmount machine that you would be absolutely nuts to use as a server if
you use Wi-Fi a lot on your smart phone why pay for a fixed monthly data plan
it's not paying for what you don't use with ting you can take a look at how
much you'll save through their calculator at Linus ENCOM let's start
with the price I've got a base pakrac Pro here and for a similarly performant
8 core machine off of think mate like a proper server one with similar upgrade
ability I'm looking at quite literally half the price not only that but one of
the largest costs associated with building out a data center is naturally
the data center itself which you pay for by the square foot now the Mac Pro may
be very powerful from like a workstation
perspective but space efficient it is
not at for server rack units
or for use I would expect for like a CPU
performance oriented deployment anywhere from 8 to 16 CPUs compared to the Mac
Pros one and if I needed you know more
GPU power I would expect anywhere from 10 to 16 GPUs in for use as opposed to
apples four and not only that but the
connectivity on this thing is a big
problem let's take a closer look at it here
you've got a hardware access hatch here
I actually haven't looked at anyone else's coverage of this thing not many
people are checking this one out because frankly speaking it doesn't make a lot
of sense for most people
and at the front we've got the familiar
cheesegrater styling very open great for
airflow not necessarily optimal for the
data center because there's like on the desktop version no dust filtration or
any such thing that's fascinating I had
intended to lay it down flat but there's actually more for us to look at here so
let's start with these release latches on the bottom this is a little different
so our front i/o is handled by a little
daughter board here there we go we've got our two Thunderbolt three ports up
there and then back here for whatever reason is this right side
up for no this is the bottom for whatever reason our access to the memory
slots is certainly still easy but only
because we have it out on the workbench right now not because it would be easy
to get at if it was actually installed in a server rack this would be a royal
pain in the butt to get at you would
have to pull the thing out and like work
on it from down here then come on there we go okay yep there it is so
we've got our single storage drive there in our base configuration and then of
course the quad-channel memory configuration that Apple ship says their
base back for whatever stupid reason just like the desktop it supports up to
six channels of memory and with the right CPU up to 1.5 terabytes of RAM
know we get to have another look we've got quick releases so these are nice and
to lists for the rack one kind of sucky thing about them is that doesn't seem to
be any way to lock the server in the rack that's a pretty typical feature so
you just have like a through-hole like this and you could put something like a
security bolt in there I mean I haven't
had a look at the rails yet so it's possible that they take care of that feature and then we've got two more
releases here and here
to take off the top cover
yep it's a Mac Pro alright that appears
to be basically the same motherboard as
the regular desktop Mac Pro and in fact
a weird actually how they've just kind of
got this open space in the front here so
there's our CPU cooler exact same
passive design I mean not straight really passive because there's a fan
right in front of it and then because I haven't got any expansion cards like an
afterburner card or a dual GPU and px module I've just got the regular radio
in pro/5 ATX right here it's quite uh it's quite open inside so I've just got
there io card look at the back where
we've got dual USB Taipei's
as well as a couple of Thunderbolt
threes and then I just have a couple of HDMI s and then dual 10 gig Ethernet and
the plug for the power supply here one of the most notable things about the
internals though is the lack of storage expansion considering the size of the
machine so you can put that upgrade Bay in here that gives you two three and a
half inch storage drives and you can put as many PCI Express based SSDs in it as
you want but that's not a lot for a machine this size especially for a
server with that said that's not inherently a problem in the enterprise
because it's quite normal to have sort of single-use or specialized systems
when we looked at SFU supercomputer you saw some of this so there would be
storage only machines with almost no compute to speak of just chock-full of
hard drives CPU only machines with a ton of RAM for big simulation
GPU machines that could lend their muscle when needed over the network and
actually that is where the real problem
lies not the inability to put hard drives in this thing so I was jazzed to
see 10 gig networking on the iMac Pro and the Mac Mini and duel 10 gig rj45
connectors on the new Mac Pro but even
to buy 10 gigabit is nothing in the data
center where they've been using 40 gigabit for 10 years and largely
converted to 50 or 100 gigabit networking or higher along with crazy
tech like PCI Express fabrics for high-speed storage yes PCI Express
networking with that said other than the
weird bottom RAM access the fact that this thing is almost completely toolless
like it's desktop brethren is pre suite so all that I want to do now then is
throw it into rec and see how the rails work
that's pretty satisfying in it
now it shouldn't surprise me at all but
naturally Apple is using their own system for attaching the rail so you
can't just go get some generic super micro rails or whatever honestly
speaking it's not like it's uncommon in servers anyway though Apple you guys
even managed to make server rack mount rails look sexy this is nice having the
packaging keep the rails from sliding apart and slicing your fingers open
definitely appreciate that coach EE pretty blog the standard ish it's nice
if you're familiar with rack mount cases at all this won't really be much of a
stretch for you
that is a slick tool assistant
alright remember always how to help her
when you're mounting a rack machine like this especially if you're trying ever so
hard not to scrap hey Tyler
that is a nice smooth slide action
there you go there's that locking mechanism just pop it out like that lock
it in like that I'm sure it looks a lot better than the
other server I have in here it's a really old store NATO that's our first one
that's obviously not in use anymore it sort of raises the question of like how
to use it now though it doesn't it because there are a handful of other
things now that I've got it in a rack that are obviously not designed for data
center use how about your remote access
to it it would be pretty typical for a server to have not just your two
high-speed networking ports or however
many you have but also an additional one that's called a management port
unfortunately the Mac Pro has no such thing so there's no way to access it
remotely from outside of the data center
to do things like reboot the machine if it's hung up or you know update the
firmware or whatever the case may be things that you would not be able to do
normally unless you are actually sitting in front of the machine plugged into a
display in peripherals on that subject it is still in the year 2020 quite
typical for server and enterprise gear to be equipped with a VGA port we will
find no such thing here and therefore you'll have some potential and
compatibility issues with things like the little carts that they'll push around in a data center to you know
quickly plug into stuff that's not behaving as you would expect another big
problem right here it's typical for an
actual server that's designed for 24/7 operation to have not even necessarily
just to but up to three redundant power
supply units that the system can fail over to in the event of like a
catastrophic PSU failure so you can see these modules cannot just be swapped out
but they can actually be hot swapped while the system is operating and the
whole thing can operate off of just one of them meanwhile the Mac Pro for all of
its costliness has just a single power
supply I mean I have no reason to think it's not a perfectly high-quality power
supply but one power supply is still just one power supply
it would appear that the way that Apple actually intends for you to use this
thing is just like you would a regular Mac Pro you just plug it into the wall
plug your monitor and directly from the back and like you know press the button
and operate it like you would a completely normal desktop computer
except that you happen to have our rack
next to you and your computers in Iraq seems to be just as quiet as the desktop
version though that's nice enough about who it is not for though let's talk
about who the rack Pro is for I think
Neil Parfitt has done a spectacular job of not just explaining but demonstrating
who this thing is for people like him he's worked as a composer and mixer on a
ton of TV and film projects and his series chronicling his transition from a
super janky set up made up of two trash can Mac Pros with endless dongles - the
2019 Mac Pro is excellent for those of
you who didn't know some of the tools for professional audio work like logic
are exclusive to macOS and macOS is low latency handling of audio is
absolutely legendary it leaves Windows completely in the dust anyway in the
series he talks about the vendor specific hardware that's required from
any of the software applications he uses the performance implications of having
all of these CPU threads and RAM available I mean I never considered the
importance of having thousands of instruments available at an instant's
notice but the way he explains it's like oh yeah that makes a ton of sense and he
talked about the way the expandability allows him to install all of the
interface cards that he needs what a concept right anyway better late than
never Apple and it threw all of it though I was honestly really impressed
both by his videos and also by Apple's willingness to go ahead and create a
product like this for just one customer
like not just Neal specifically but
audio professionals like him because that is what this is don't kid yourself
in the data center the quiet operation of the Mac is absolutely meaningless but
in audio particularly a live production it matters a lot so yeah it's not a
server and the only reason this unit is rack-mounted and the reason that people
will be willing to pay the $500 premium for that feature is that basically all
other high-end audio equipment is also rack mounted and having everything
neatly stacked up like this or ready for
easy transport is really helpful from an organization and
efficiency perspective so in summary it's the exact same machine
for the exact same customer but with
handles like this not like this ting
does mobile phone service differently there's no contracts no overage fees and
no other carrier tricks you just pay a fair price for the talk text and data
that you actually end up using each month and ting gives you the ultimate
control over your cell phone account you can set alerts and caps for each device
on your account to keep your usage or the usage of your dependents in check
they've got wider nationwide LTE coverage by using t-mobile Sprint and
now Verizon's networks which means great
coverage from coast to coast almost any phone will work with ting from that
ancient Motorola RAZR sitting in your basement to the new Motorola RAZR that's
probably not in your basement or an iPhone 11 you can check your phone's compatibility at Linus ENCOM and you'll
get $25 in credit when you sign up so go check it out so thanks for checking out
this video if you guys are looking for more Mac content maybe check out our
hack Pro series where we are attempting actually we're not quite done yet but
it's mostly working to build a PC equivalent to this that we've managed to
install macOS on it's pretty sick I'm gonna have that link below I have now
moved up to the big leagues and wasted my money on two Mac pros this time it's
the rackmount edition