Xserve G5 experiences & opinions?

January 6, 2004 11:20 PM

Should we be considering the Xserve G5 for the hardware replacement cycle due to descend like a shadow upon our older Supermicro servers later this year?

We use MySQL, Postfix, Apache, Courier-IMAP, FreeRADIUS, and pure-ftpd on FreeBSD. The Supermicros are Intel processors. Our user info is stored in MySQL, with all the above apps authenticating against the database, so we wouldn't replace our user management with Apple's GUI management tools. So does anyone have any opinions about the Xserve as hardware based on their direct experience with the previous models(I'm assuming they will be comparable)?

posted by dglynn to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Hard to say without more info about your particular requirements. Perhaps if you explained why you want a new server, and what problems you have had with the current one, we could give you a better answer.

Also, you could certainly get a cheap used G4, throw OS X on it, and see if all your software works. Once you do that, doing the same on a "real" server should be a piece of cake. (You shouldn't need to buy OS X Server for this.)
posted by xil at 1:17 AM on January 7, 2004

I can tell you from experience, the G4 XServes are solid. They rock.

Of course, they're kick-ass MAC servers. They're great hardware in general, but they're not the optimal solution for more generic UNIX serving.

If you prefer to roll your own, the XServe may not be for you. You can build a cheaper box yourself. More specifically, the software setup you describe lends itself to a DIY approach that the XServe probably isn't ideal for. You'd likely spend a good amount of up-front time wrestling away control of the server from OS X to do what you want.
posted by mkultra at 6:52 AM on January 7, 2004

What is it about the XServe hardware that puts it on your list of hardware to consider? Does it offer a particular feature you're after? If not, you'll probably find equivalent or better options cheaper, with equal or better support. Apple hasn't quite hit a sweet spot in the commodity server market yet.
posted by majick at 7:05 AM on January 7, 2004

Xserves would handle what you need just fine, but your needs wouldn't neccesarily make me think Xserve. The strengths of the xserve lean towards education markets that utilize them for file/print/directory services/management or the scientific community that can gain significant advantage from the altivec instruction set when doing, for example, genetic modelling within a cluster setup.

You shouldn't need to buy OS X Server for this.

That's not entirely true. It's not like NT4 server having only 4 lines of code difference from the client. OSX Server is optimized for services it supports. Yes, running your apps on OSX client would provide a good proof of concept, but it wouldn't serve as a good production box.
posted by machaus at 2:05 PM on January 7, 2004

We are doing the proof of concept thingy already, which got me intrigued in the first place. As to why we would be replacing hardware, well it's about 3 years old right now, and will be closer to four by the time we actually take it out of production. The boxes are due to start spitting drives and fans and all sorts of pain in the ass stuff in the next year.

One of the things that made me consider the Xserve was the amount of hardware monitoring. They seem to have sensors out the wazoo.

Also, pricing the RAID server from Apple against comparable devices made us think, hey, maybe.....

We were interested in reliability reports, and mkultra's sounds good. We've been developing our software to allow other, less expensive people manage our day to day stuff. Frankly, saving a thousand bucks on a server doesn't tempt us anywhere near as much as it used to. Jumping on a support train, where our on-site people can just yank a drive, whip in a replacement, mail off the dead one, and put the replacement on the shelf as a backup is now the type of thing that could make us money by freeing up more qualified people's time to do more productive things than babysit hardware.
posted by dglynn at 3:19 PM on January 7, 2004

The monitoring is pretty sweet. If you have an available smtp relay, you can even have the alerts emailed to you when hardware goes out of spec. A couple things to note however...

1.The dual GB nics cannot be teamed. Don't expect to use the second nic to load balance. Consider using it for remote management, or separate the box into public and private networks.

2.The new Xserves only have 3 drive bays versus 4 in the G4 model because of the needed fans for the processor. This limits your RAID options and pushes you towards needing a Xserve RAID more quickly. If you do use any drive mirroring, it is software based (though each drive has its own IDE controller) and you will take a speed hit.

3.Apple's QA process hasn't been so hot of late. This bug blew up AFP on 10.2.8 Server boxen. Once you get things stable, be leery of updates. You should have a dev box.

4.If you boot drive swaps with Xserves, even if you use something ditto based like Carbon Copy cloner, the new drive will likely need to have it's network settings reset in the GUI before it'll play nice on your network. Something gets held in PRAM or Open Firmware and until you delete the nics, reboot and let them get rediscovered, it'll act wonky.

HTH
posted by machaus at 4:47 PM on January 7, 2004