Our Clear Choice Test of Apple’s Xserve found it performed much faster than the older Xserve G4 model we previously tested.
On the outside, the Xserve doesn’t look much different from its predecessor, which has twin 32-bit PowerPC CPUs. We compiled programs and performed large file copies on the new model. Using the GNU gcc4 compiler, we found that compile times typically took an average of 10% of the time the Xserve G4 unit took. File copies, especially large files, were 65% to 82% faster on the new hardware than on the G4.
Some of the goodies crammed into the 1U rack frame include space for three Serial Advanced Technology Attachment () or Serial Attached SCSI () drives with as much as 2.1TB of storage and as much as 32GB of memory. This means that the new Xserve can be power hungry. It’s fed by a 650-watt power supply with an optional redundant supply.
How we tested Apple Xserve
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The densely packed Xserve includes two PCI Express card slots, one of which can be reconfigured to be an independent, bus-controlled PCI-X slot; we thought it might be full, but indeed there is still more. The independent PCI-X slot doesn’t depend on the other slot, so it can run full speed. In other systems, the PCI-X bus speed often is throttled down to the lowest-speed card in the bus. Not so here.
There are two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two FireWire 800 ports on the rear and a FireWire 400 jack on the front. FireWire is Apple’s name for the IEEE 1394 high-speed serial interface.
Like many Apple computers, the Xserve can be booted into FireWire mode, making it a huge, FireWire-accessible disk-drive system rather than a server. This feature sounds obscure, but we used the new Xserve as a FireWire drive to the DVD-less, older, G4-based server when we updated the G4 server to Mac OS 10.4.8.
FireWire access also can be disabled in Apple’s new integrated lights-out management, a set of server-hardware controls similar to those found in HP’s server lines. We could force software updates from Apple’s site and run checks on drives, physical locks, and power and temperature status. Because of these additions, it’s safer to leave an Xserve in a remote network operations center.
On top of this communications infrastructure, the new Xserve has independent channels for USB 2.0 devices, as well as a serial port. The Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, USB and serial ports are optional connection points for Apple’s Server Admin application.
Server Admin uses Secure Shell V2 logons or a serial connection to monitor one or more Xserves concurrently and perform server management, such as establishing settings for Samba, Postfix/mail, Apache and the Quicktime Streaming Server applications. We found it simple to drill down through the user interface to find log information, application status and salient settings for each application. The user interface is consistent, and easily rivals SUSE Linux’s YaST tool for simplicity and comprehensiveness.
Xserve Quad Xeon performance tests The Xserve Quad Xeon outperformed the Xserve G4 and IBM e326M. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In terms of server construction, Apple now can lock the disk drives using Server Admin. The drives are mounted with sturdier hardware and are far less prone to accidental ejection than earlier-generation models. Also standard is a DVD-ROM/CD-read/write drive that c
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Like many Apple computers, the Xserve can be booted into FireWire mode, making it a huge, FireWire-accessible disk-drive system rather than a server. This feature sounds obscure, but we used the new Xserve as a FireWire drive to the DVD-less, older, G4-based server when we updated the G4 server to Mac OS 10.4.8.
FireWire access also can be disabled in Apple’s new integrated lights-out management, a set of server-hardware controls similar to those found in HP’s server lines. We could force software updates from Apple’s site and run checks on drives, physical locks, and power and temperature status. Because of these additions, it’s safer to leave an Xserve in a remote network operations center.
On top of this communications infrastructure, the new Xserve has independent channels for USB 2.0 devices, as well as a serial port. The Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, USB and serial ports are optional connection points for Apple’s Server Admin application.
Server Admin uses Secure Shell V2 logons or a serial connection to monitor one or more Xserves concurrently and perform server management, such as establishing settings for Samba, Postfix/mail, Apache and the Quicktime Streaming Server applications. We found it simple to drill down through the user interface to find log information, application status and salient settings for each application. The user interface is consistent, and easily rivals SUSE Linux’s YaST tool for simplicity and comprehensiveness.
Xserve Quad Xeon performance tests The Xserve Quad Xeon outperformed the Xserve G4 and IBM e326M. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In terms of server construction, Apple now can lock the disk drives using Server Admin. The drives are mounted with sturdier hardware and are far less prone to accidental ejection than earlier-generation models. Also standard is a DVD-ROM/CD-read/write drive that can be ordered as a DVD and CD read/write drive.
The SATA or SAS attached drives can be configured via software as Level 1 or Level 0 drives. RAID 1 worked well, and was easy to set up and manage in our tests.
| Apple’s Xserve Quad Xeon has space for three SATA or SAS drives with as much as 2.1TB of storage and as much as 32GB of memory. |
Xserve comes with Apple’s Mac OS operating system at no additional charge for unlimited users. The version tested, MacOS 10.4.8 (with security updates), closely resembles previous editions we’ve tested (see the Mac OS 10.3 test).
MacOS 10.4.8 includes a 64-bit kernel, along with a 64-bit version of MySQL. Included from Apple via its Xcode download are 32- and 64-bit versions of the Gnu Compiler Collection, which we used to compile a modified version of LMBench3, the open source benchmark (see How we tested Apple Xserve).
Depending on how we measured, the new Xserve was 22% to 344% faster in computation and memory management, and 71% to 462% faster in disk I/O than the Xserve G4 in our LMBench3 testing.
Despite being crammed full of gear, the Xserves breathe better, because they have more headroom, or computational and operational capacity; more bandwidth and memory capacity; faster drives; faster bus slots; and lots of flexibility via hardware options.
Security is no better or worse than in earlier editions, but attention to server management through Server Admin is an improvement.
Parallels technology for CPU emulation and translation let us use any of the G4 CPU-specific applications without limitation. Xserve is a strong competitor to Windows server sites and Linux clientele, and makes a good branch-office server or a simply managed Unix-based application server.
Henderson is principal of ExtremeLabs in Indianapolis. He can be reached at thenderson@extremelabs.com.
Henderson is also a member of the Network World Lab Alliance, a cooperative of the premier reviewers in the network industry, each bringing to bear years of practical experience on every review. For more Lab Alliance information, including what it takes to become a member, go to www.networkworld.com/alliance.
