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shortly after releasing the Mac Pro Apple delivered on their promise

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of a

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rack-mountable version of the same machine naturally immediately the web

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absolutely lit up with speculation that

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Apple was finally creating a spiritual successor to their xserve lineup of

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servers and maybe even macOS server

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could this the apples triumphant return to the data center no that that's not

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happening Apple is 100% laser focused on

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building cloud services that actually don't even run on their own hardware and

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nothing about this machine changes that so let's take a look at this and find

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out why Apple saw fit to create a

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rackmount machine that you would be absolutely nuts to use as a server if

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you use Wi-Fi a lot on your smart phone why pay for a fixed monthly data plan

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it's not paying for what you don't use with ting you can take a look at how

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much you'll save through their calculator at Linus ENCOM let's start

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with the price I've got a base pakrac Pro here and for a similarly performant

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8 core machine off of think mate like a proper server one with similar upgrade

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ability I'm looking at quite literally half the price not only that but one of

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the largest costs associated with building out a data center is naturally

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the data center itself which you pay for by the square foot now the Mac Pro may

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be very powerful from like a workstation

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perspective but space efficient it is

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not at for server rack units

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or for use I would expect for like a CPU

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performance oriented deployment anywhere from 8 to 16 CPUs compared to the Mac

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Pros one and if I needed you know more

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GPU power I would expect anywhere from 10 to 16 GPUs in for use as opposed to

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apples four and not only that but the

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connectivity on this thing is a big

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problem let's take a closer look at it here

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you've got a hardware access hatch here

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I actually haven't looked at anyone else's coverage of this thing not many

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people are checking this one out because frankly speaking it doesn't make a lot

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of sense for most people

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and at the front we've got the familiar

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cheesegrater styling very open great for

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airflow not necessarily optimal for the

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data center because there's like on the desktop version no dust filtration or

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any such thing that's fascinating I had

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intended to lay it down flat but there's actually more for us to look at here so

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let's start with these release latches on the bottom this is a little different

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so our front i/o is handled by a little

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daughter board here there we go we've got our two Thunderbolt three ports up

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there and then back here for whatever reason is this right side

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up for no this is the bottom for whatever reason our access to the memory

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slots is certainly still easy but only

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because we have it out on the workbench right now not because it would be easy

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to get at if it was actually installed in a server rack this would be a royal

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pain in the butt to get at you would

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have to pull the thing out and like work

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on it from down here then come on there we go okay yep there it is so

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we've got our single storage drive there in our base configuration and then of

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course the quad-channel memory configuration that Apple ship says their

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base back for whatever stupid reason just like the desktop it supports up to

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six channels of memory and with the right CPU up to 1.5 terabytes of RAM

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know we get to have another look we've got quick releases so these are nice and

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to lists for the rack one kind of sucky thing about them is that doesn't seem to

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be any way to lock the server in the rack that's a pretty typical feature so

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you just have like a through-hole like this and you could put something like a

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security bolt in there I mean I haven't

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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

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releases here and here

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to take off the top cover

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yep it's a Mac Pro alright that appears

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to be basically the same motherboard as

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the regular desktop Mac Pro and in fact

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a weird actually how they've just kind of

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got this open space in the front here so

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there's our CPU cooler exact same

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passive design I mean not straight really passive because there's a fan

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right in front of it and then because I haven't got any expansion cards like an

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afterburner card or a dual GPU and px module I've just got the regular radio

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in pro/5 ATX right here it's quite uh it's quite open inside so I've just got

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there io card look at the back where

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we've got dual USB Taipei's

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as well as a couple of Thunderbolt

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threes and then I just have a couple of HDMI s and then dual 10 gig Ethernet and

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the plug for the power supply here one of the most notable things about the

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internals though is the lack of storage expansion considering the size of the

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machine so you can put that upgrade Bay in here that gives you two three and a

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half inch storage drives and you can put as many PCI Express based SSDs in it as

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you want but that's not a lot for a machine this size especially for a

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server with that said that's not inherently a problem in the enterprise

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because it's quite normal to have sort of single-use or specialized systems

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when we looked at SFU supercomputer you saw some of this so there would be

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storage only machines with almost no compute to speak of just chock-full of

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hard drives CPU only machines with a ton of RAM for big simulation

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GPU machines that could lend their muscle when needed over the network and

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actually that is where the real problem

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lies not the inability to put hard drives in this thing so I was jazzed to

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see 10 gig networking on the iMac Pro and the Mac Mini and duel 10 gig rj45

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connectors on the new Mac Pro but even

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to buy 10 gigabit is nothing in the data

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center where they've been using 40 gigabit for 10 years and largely

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converted to 50 or 100 gigabit networking or higher along with crazy

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tech like PCI Express fabrics for high-speed storage yes PCI Express

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networking with that said other than the

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weird bottom RAM access the fact that this thing is almost completely toolless

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like it's desktop brethren is pre suite so all that I want to do now then is

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throw it into rec and see how the rails work

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that's pretty satisfying in it

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now it shouldn't surprise me at all but

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naturally Apple is using their own system for attaching the rail so you

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can't just go get some generic super micro rails or whatever honestly

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speaking it's not like it's uncommon in servers anyway though Apple you guys

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even managed to make server rack mount rails look sexy this is nice having the

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packaging keep the rails from sliding apart and slicing your fingers open

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definitely appreciate that coach EE pretty blog the standard ish it's nice

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if you're familiar with rack mount cases at all this won't really be much of a

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stretch for you

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that is a slick tool assistant

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alright remember always how to help her

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when you're mounting a rack machine like this especially if you're trying ever so

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hard not to scrap hey Tyler

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that is a nice smooth slide action

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there you go there's that locking mechanism just pop it out like that lock

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it in like that I'm sure it looks a lot better than the

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other server I have in here it's a really old store NATO that's our first one

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that's obviously not in use anymore it sort of raises the question of like how

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to use it now though it doesn't it because there are a handful of other

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things now that I've got it in a rack that are obviously not designed for data

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center use how about your remote access

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to it it would be pretty typical for a server to have not just your two

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high-speed networking ports or however

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many you have but also an additional one that's called a management port

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unfortunately the Mac Pro has no such thing so there's no way to access it

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remotely from outside of the data center

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to do things like reboot the machine if it's hung up or you know update the

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firmware or whatever the case may be things that you would not be able to do

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normally unless you are actually sitting in front of the machine plugged into a

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display in peripherals on that subject it is still in the year 2020 quite

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typical for server and enterprise gear to be equipped with a VGA port we will

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find no such thing here and therefore you'll have some potential and

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compatibility issues with things like the little carts that they'll push around in a data center to you know

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quickly plug into stuff that's not behaving as you would expect another big

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problem right here it's typical for an

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actual server that's designed for 24/7 operation to have not even necessarily

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just to but up to three redundant power

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supply units that the system can fail over to in the event of like a

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catastrophic PSU failure so you can see these modules cannot just be swapped out

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but they can actually be hot swapped while the system is operating and the

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whole thing can operate off of just one of them meanwhile the Mac Pro for all of

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its costliness has just a single power

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supply I mean I have no reason to think it's not a perfectly high-quality power

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supply but one power supply is still just one power supply

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it would appear that the way that Apple actually intends for you to use this

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thing is just like you would a regular Mac Pro you just plug it into the wall

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plug your monitor and directly from the back and like you know press the button

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and operate it like you would a completely normal desktop computer

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except that you happen to have our rack

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next to you and your computers in Iraq seems to be just as quiet as the desktop

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version though that's nice enough about who it is not for though let's talk

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about who the rack Pro is for I think

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Neil Parfitt has done a spectacular job of not just explaining but demonstrating

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who this thing is for people like him he's worked as a composer and mixer on a

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ton of TV and film projects and his series chronicling his transition from a

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super janky set up made up of two trash can Mac Pros with endless dongles - the

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2019 Mac Pro is excellent for those of

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you who didn't know some of the tools for professional audio work like logic

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are exclusive to macOS and macOS is low latency handling of audio is

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absolutely legendary it leaves Windows completely in the dust anyway in the

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series he talks about the vendor specific hardware that's required from

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any of the software applications he uses the performance implications of having

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all of these CPU threads and RAM available I mean I never considered the

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importance of having thousands of instruments available at an instant's

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notice but the way he explains it's like oh yeah that makes a ton of sense and he

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talked about the way the expandability allows him to install all of the

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interface cards that he needs what a concept right anyway better late than

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never Apple and it threw all of it though I was honestly really impressed

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both by his videos and also by Apple's willingness to go ahead and create a

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product like this for just one customer

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like not just Neal specifically but

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audio professionals like him because that is what this is don't kid yourself

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in the data center the quiet operation of the Mac is absolutely meaningless but

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in audio particularly a live production it matters a lot so yeah it's not a

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server and the only reason this unit is rack-mounted and the reason that people

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will be willing to pay the $500 premium for that feature is that basically all

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other high-end audio equipment is also rack mounted and having everything

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neatly stacked up like this or ready for

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easy transport is really helpful from an organization and

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efficiency perspective so in summary it's the exact same machine

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for the exact same customer but with

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handles like this not like this ting

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does mobile phone service differently there's no contracts no overage fees and

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no other carrier tricks you just pay a fair price for the talk text and data

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that you actually end up using each month and ting gives you the ultimate

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control over your cell phone account you can set alerts and caps for each device

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on your account to keep your usage or the usage of your dependents in check

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they've got wider nationwide LTE coverage by using t-mobile Sprint and

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now Verizon's networks which means great

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coverage from coast to coast almost any phone will work with ting from that

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ancient Motorola RAZR sitting in your basement to the new Motorola RAZR that's

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probably not in your basement or an iPhone 11 you can check your phone's compatibility at Linus ENCOM and you'll

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get $25 in credit when you sign up so go check it out so thanks for checking out

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this video if you guys are looking for more Mac content maybe check out our

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hack Pro series where we are attempting actually we're not quite done yet but

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it's mostly working to build a PC equivalent to this that we've managed to

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install macOS on it's pretty sick I'm gonna have that link below I have now

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moved up to the big leagues and wasted my money on two Mac pros this time it's

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the rackmount edition