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Apple's rackmount Mac Pro is now available
If you (or more likely, your company) are pining for the new Mac Pro but don't want anything so gauche as a tower under the desk, Apple has you covered. It started taking orders for the rackmount version of the Mac Pro, with new purchases shipping in three to four weeks. It's the same computer underneath as its desktop-oriented counterpart with options for many-core Xeon CPUs, Radeon Pro Vega II graphics, an Afterburner video accelerator card and gobs of memory and storage -- it's just arriving in a new form factor that's better-suited to render farms, servers and easy-to-move stations.
Sonnet announces RackMac mini Xserver, makes Apple desktop IT life seem more legit
We're sure a few of you have made that recently revamped Mac mini your office server, but now you can give it the look of a grown-up server room. Thanks to Sonnet, you'll soon be able to rack mount your Thunderbolt sportin' dainty PC within a 1U shell. The company has announced that, upon the system's expected arrival in November, it'll be decked out with a PCIe 2.0 X4 slot, a 75W power supply and a Thunderbolt daisy-chain port. This Apple speed-port adapter will enable use of that massive Thunderbolt display even in server or metadata controller mode. For more use scenarios, hit the full PR below or peruse the product page via the coverage link.
Matrox strikes at NAB, first to market with Thunderbolt products
Word out of NAB is that Matrox, known best for enabling day-traders to run an excessive number of monitors off a single graphics card, will be the first company to market with peripherals designed to use Thunderbolt. All the latest models of its MXO2 family of video I/O boxes will be shipping with Thunderbolt on board, while budding film makers using the current gen MXO2 devices will be able to push 10Gb worth of pixels per second by picking up an adapter. Matrox didn't announce a firm release date or price, though we expect it will fall in line with the current products, which range from $449 up to almost $2,400 for the MXO2 Rack with Matrox Max. They're not exactly must have accessories for the average user, but if you simply can't wait any longer to put those Thunderbolt ports to use, it's the only game in town.
Spruce up your cooking with the Original Kitchen iPad Rack
If you've ever used your iPad in the kitchen, you know that the magical and revolutionary device doesn't always match up to the greasy, sticky, steamy reality of the cooking zone. We've proposed a few low-tech solutions to this challenge before, but when we heard about the Original Kitchen iPad Rack (US$29.95), I was curious to see whether it would make the kitchen a more tablet-friendly environment. Of course, the first challenge was getting the idea past our home's chief operations officer. "You're putting holes in my kitchen cabinets?" she asked, eyebrows raised. "I don't think that's a good idea." Once I explained that the mounting hardware goes completely underneath the cabinet and is out of sight, she relented -- with a good deal of remaining skepticism. The rack is a very simple affair, especially when compared to some of the more elaborate multi-site attachment solutions we saw at Macworld: three screw-in clips, patent pending, that are attached to the flat bottom of the cabinet anywhere from the back wall to about two inches from the front. The clear plastic rack itself snaps into the clips, but it's very easy to remove and stash when not in use -- the clips themselves are invisible. %Gallery-115803%
SGI's ICE Cube Air Modular Data Centers can be deployed anywhere, even in the hood
SGI is a shadow of its former self, selling its name to Rackable Systems and appearing in some disgraceful situation comedies. We like to remember the old, harder, edgier SGI, a pioneer in the computer graphics industry when it came straight outta Sunnyvale in the '80s. Now it's back, launching the ICE Cube Air Modular Data Center, capable of housing four racks and expandable up to 80 and a total of 97,920 cores and 143.36PB of storage. Each unit is almost entirely self-sufficient, requiring only power and a supply of water, which can come from a plain old garden hose. Cost starts at $99,000, which isn't cheap, but we went ahead and ordered four. You know how we do it.
SnapStream's monster DVR records 50 channels at once, even when nothin's on
Get ready for an acute case of DVR inadequacy courtesy of SnapStream, which has pieced together what it's calling the world's largest DVR, and we're inclined to believe them. Run a coax in the back and, with a fully configured unit, you can record a whopping 50 channels simultaneously onto over 100TB of storage. The trick is it's actually five separate rack-mounted SnapStream DVRs that all join together to share storage, work across tuners, and to fight the evil King Zarkon from the planet Doom -- or at least to record all the Voltron reruns ever aired, ever. No word on the cost of a fully-configured rack, but given the size of that thing (check out the door in the background for comparison) we're thinking it might not fit in our entertainment center anyway. %Gallery-90009%
Runco's WindowWall gives you the $100,000 view you always wanted (eyes-on)
You see them, as soon as you set eyes on the gigantic, nine-panel screen. Those black lines are plainly visible. But the 46-inch Samsung panels in Runco's WindowWall have 7.33mm bezels that almost disappear from ten feet away, and when we first walked in, we actually thought they were part of the image. In a nutshell, WindowWall is a modular display system that turns entire walls into displays capable of rendering giant images across many screens, or display different media -- say, Doctor Who, LOST, FlashForward, V, Castle, 24, a couple computer screens and an episode of Firefly for good measure -- on each individual one. Making the system work in sync requires quite a bit of hardware, including a power supply unit and display controller unit for every four 1366 x 768 panels used, not to mention an upscaling box and a seriously sturdy stand (sorry, Humanscale) to hold up all that glass. The company boasts the whole system is scalable, meaning you can make it work with as few as four or as many as twenty panels and still run the entire system as a single screen at its full, gigantic native resolution. We weren't able to see these nine pumping pixels at 4098 x 2304, unfortunately, as the only content on hand was 1080p, but the footage did seem to be well synced across all nine screens. Of course, with a system like this the catch is cost -- for the nine panels, frame, reels of CAT cable and veritable server rack required to run this particular WindowWall, Runco said we should expect to pay a heartstopping $100,000. Droolworthy, to be sure, but too rich for our blood. Perhaps if the whole neighborhood chipped in, right before Super Bowl? %Gallery-89982%
Panasonic brings two more choices to the theater rack market
Panasonic's new SC-HTR510-K (pictured) and SC-HTR10-K are a pieces of gear that, for lack of a better term, is called the theater rack -- that union of furniture, electronics and speakers that in an audio-only time would have been called a console system. We'd much prefer a HTIB (especially one of the Japan-only models) to these electrified pieces of furniture, but they are probably only meant for space-constrained Japanese market. The larger ¥200,000 ($1,800) SC-HTR510-K is a 3.1-channel system with 3x65-Watts of power and a 90-Watt subwoofer, while the ¥50,000 ($450) 2.1-channel SC-HTR10-K makes do with 2x25-Watts in the front and a 30-Watt sub. Simplicity is obviously the drive with these, so Viera Link shows up along with AAC, Dolby Digital and DTS decoding.
Humanscale's eight-monitor mount is huge. Seriously.
Sometimes one display isn't enough. Sometimes you need two. Sometimes you need eight. When you need eight, you'll probably want to contact the folks over at Humanscale -- an ironically named company that creates mounts that are decidedly inhuman. Take the Paramount Parabolic Multi-Monitor Display, for instance: a rack for your bank of eight monitors that's a guaranteed must-have for your elaborate array of "stalking" screens in the basement of your creepy estate. We're sure there are uses for this beyond tracking the every movement of your house-guests, but we don't want to know what they are.[Via Crave]
TUAW Rig of the Week: Crunching numbers
TUAW reader el frijole should have no trouble "crunching numbers" with this bad boy. A plethora of Xserves get busy...well, doing something important and demanding. Note the three empty slots that once housed dead drives. Poor little guys. "Number crunching" by el frijole If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. Each Sunday we'll comb through the most recent entries and declare a "Rig of the Week!"
Rack your Xserve RAID with Ikea furniture
I just spent a good chunk of my morning wrestling with rack equipment, so I really apprecitate Fraser Speirs Ikea 'rack' for his Xserve RAID. He does point out that the Xserve RAID is loud, but not as loud as he thought it would be.I'm really tempted to try this myself, but sadly my budget is all Ikea and no Xserve.
Power Support releases Mac Mini bracket
If you have a Mac Mini you want to mount on a rack, but this seems like overkill to you, consider Power Support's Mac Mini Bracket. This bracket is attached to the underside of a desk or shelf and very effectively gets it out of the way. The kit includes all the hardware you will need plus eight adhesive pads designed to protect your Mac's finish. It will cost approximately $38 USD and is currently available only through Power Support's Japanese site, though it may show up on their US site soon.[Via 123MacMini]
