Apple announces new Xserve

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Apple has announced the release of its new Xserve server, claiming to deliver twice the performance of the previous system.

It will incorporate Intel’s Xeon 5500 processors and have storage options of a lower power solid state drive (SSD) and up to 3TB of internal storage.

David Moody, Apple’s vice president of worldwide Mac product marketing, said: “The Xserve is the best workgroup server for our education, business and creative customers. With up to twice the performance, better power efficiency and an innovative SSD drive option, this is the best Xserve we’ve ever made.”

Each processor has an integrated memory controller with three channels of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC memory that Apple claim delivers up to 2.4 times the memory bandwidth while cutting memory latency by up to 40 per cent. It will use efficient power supplies that incorporate thermal management, planning to reduce idle power use by 19 per cent.

The 128GB SSD boot-drive storage option requires less hard disk power whilst delivering faster random access times without occupying a drive bay, up to 48 times faster according to tests by Apple. The three 3.5 inch drive bays support both 7200 rpm SATA and 15,000 rpm SAS drives and can be configured with up to 3TB of internal storage.

The Xserve RAID card option supports RAID levels 0, 1 and 5 with 512MB of cache without using a PCI Express expansion slot. A 72-hour backup battery is included for “enhanced data protection”.

The standard configuration has a suggested retail price of $2,999 (£2,039) but built to order options and accessories are available. It also comes with an unlimited client edition of Leopard Server.

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