96 MacBook Pro’s in one server rack (opens in new tab)

You don't 'need' the thunderbolt adaptor. Any old USB NIC will do. Like this $15 USB3 Gigabit ethernet adaptor:

http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Ethernet-Chromebook-Specific-...

Well the MacBook Pro's are ultra portable and super thin now. The laptop would probably have to be at least 20% thicker to make for enough room for an ethernet port. And since 90% of MBP Retina owners probably rarely if ever use ethernet, it's a good tradeoff to make. The Retina model is much lighter and easier to carry (especially with one hand) than it's predecessor.

My desktop is basically filled with an octopus of dongles these days. It's ugly and annoying, and increases the footprint of my laptop 2x.

I guess USB-C is supposed to help with this?

Yeah, I was disappointed by that, too. It's not about the cost, I don't care about the extra $40 or so, but now there is one more "dongle/cable" I need to worry about.

A $30 adapter for a $2000+ machine isn't what I would call expensive. It does make the machines a lot thinner though and normally, you don't need wired Ethernet any more.

I easily reach 60+ MB/s now over WiFi, so for the times where I really need the additional power I don't care about having the additional dongle with me.

The MacBook Pro I bought last year was the first that didn't have one. I seldom used Ethernet but I still miss it. Apple probably wouldn't use it but can't they develop a small connector for the next generation thin laptops? Microsoft Surface form factor is going to become prevalent in the PC world.

I'm more miffed about Apples' USB Type-C strategy.. but on the other hand, Docking stations have their value .. I was disappointed in this as well, but nevertheless am an rMBP user .. so until Henge upgrade this to include Ethernet:

http://hengedocks.com/pages/vertical-macbook-pro-retina

I've been doing quite fine with the DOCK as my 'need ethernet at my desktop' solution:

http://www.landingzone.net/products/for-the-macbook-pro/

I'm sure there are other options; it is a hassle that Apple removed it, but on the road I rarely need Ethernet, and at the desktop, its kind of easy to just plug-in.

Another problem, very slow to actually connect to the wired network. I'm using it almost every day for different networks, I just can't get used to the wait.

This is a constant frustration in the office.

For the ethernet port, it is very much Apple's style... but either way, using consumer Apple devices for servers only make sense if you get them for free (civil forfeiture for example)...

Retina models ditched the Ethernet port, so 2012 is when that happened.

At least since the mid-2012 Macbook Pro Retina (which is what I have.)

If your laptop and wireless router supports 802.11ac then what are the most common reasons to still prefer Ethernet port?

Is it mostly about spectrum getting full or security concerns?

I just noticed that I haven't used Ethernet cable for the last few years.

"We require Mac OS X because the products we make run on OS X and we believe in testing on the same hardware our customers use, this helps produce a better product".

If the software they're testing is used mainly on Macbook Pro's, then they're wanting to test on Macbook Pro's. Things like GPU and CPU differences may make a difference to how their software performs.

No idea what they do, but they had a mac mini setup in the past: https://simbimbo.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/in-production/

Potential reason is that they need see how their tests affect screen burn. They mention they specifically need Mac hardware so this could be why they specifically need retina screens.

"They are actually being held open 7mm by a custom 3D printed wedge. This opening allows for the screen to be used for testing as well as ample air circulation. You can’t see the temperature sensors tucked into each notebook’s keyboard area."

Air circulation makes sense. There is a vent in between the screen pivot and the base, and also the gaps in the keys allow for some heat to escape.

Agreed that the screens should be turned off, though. Could just turn the brightness down to 0.

Because 3d printing is cool and trendy.

Why use a menubar program…?

    $ man caffeinate

My first guess is heat.

>I understand having the laptops open to stop them going to sleep without an external display, but I'd've thought you could turn the backlight all the way to "off".

You can even disable sleep with closed lid[1], but addmiteddly that might intefere with ventilation, since there are vents in front of the hinge.

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...

Perhaps the light is on so that they can spot dead devices at a glance?

Maybe it's just that it makes a cooler photo.

If you switch to Mac Mini's and assemble mutiple mini's in a private cloud running VMware, you can have a much more efficient setup. You can do it with xServe's and the latest Mac Pro's as well.

You would have to terminate in magsafe connectors. You'd either have to butcher the wiring on all the power bricks or come up with some frankenstein thing with airline adapters, which I believe are now discontinued for some reason.

For a full rack that's not a ridiculous price. Oracle will gladly sell you racks that cost in excess of a million.

It would make sense to try the refurbished ones. I doubt you'd get 96 of the same model, though.

http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbo...

    Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Dual-core Intel i5 with Retina Display
    $1,099.00
    Save $200.00
    15% off

$1500 is the entry price for 4-way xeons, and that's before you factor in the chassis, motherboard, RAM and PSUs. You can easily find 4U servers more expensive than that, the rack seems to have a 32U capacity and could fit 8 such servers.

A standard server rack (fully populated, just regular app or web servers) can easily be 400k+. Everything built to run in a datacenter is pretty expensive, even if you've done your negotiating work and aren't foolishly paying list.

With such a large capital expense, it makes a lot more sense to rent dedicated mac hardware from a data center. You get simple monthly bills, guaranteed uptime, and the infrastructure is looked after for you.

If you were trying to do automated software testing on native OS X machines (instead of virtualization), I suppose it could make sense. Or something.

That's not terrible. We have a couple of high end HP machines that are 4U and cost more than that each.

Volume discounts?

How much money the VC is willing to waste

This seems to be the author

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/viewProfile.html?userID=...

and the products http://uk.mathworks.com/products/?s_tid=gn_ps

An answer to this would be great. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to stop thinking about that question for a while.

For many people that need to develop, test, and deploy on Mac hardware they're doing iOS app or OS X development.

For example, you may have a macbook pro, but it's not powerful enough to run tests in a few minutes while you do other work on it at the same time. In this case, you'd want another Mac like a Mini, Pro or Xserve to send jobs to.

Anyone using X Code has to run it on a Mac and often, you're wasting precious development time when your jobs are taking up your Macbook's processing power for an hour while it tests your latest build.

Travis-CI, the continuous integration platform, will send your jobs to a cloud of Mac servers when they require OS X to build against.

(I wrote the imgix post you linked to)

I think Steve has done a great job on his MacBook Pro rack design, but I do wonder about the advantage the MBP has over the Mac Pro for their workload.

It may be that the GPUs of the Mac Pro don't matter to them, which would reduce the value proposition of those systems by a fair amount. The MBP also has an advantage in that it was just updated, and the current Mac Pro is a bit older. That advantage is hopefully just temporary, but it is pretty likely that the MBP will continue to receive more frequent updates in the future.

You can definitely squeeze more systems into a rack with the MBP, but my preference would still be to go with the Mac Pro:

  No batteries on your datacenter floor
  No power bricks
  Better airflow
  No screen burning electricity (although this is minimal)

The batteries particularly worry me. They're a potential fire hazard, and over time you'll need to replace them (even though they don't matter) before they expand and deform the system chassis. They also make power outlet control over a system annoying, since you'll have to wait for hours after the outlet is cycled off and the battery has discharged to cycle the outlet back on.

That would be "'96 MacBook Pros..." or I guess, since it was written by a Mac user, "’96 MacBook Pros..."

Test farm.

> There was similar post with ARM Chromebooks. A few years ago it was impossible to find stable ARMs which could sustain decent load without crashing. Company had to buy bunch of Chromebooks, strip batteries and put them into rack.

Well, no. The guy putting that rack together didn't know what he was doing and insisted on using the stock AC adapter for the devices. You NEVER use the stock AC adapters in a cluster. They are (usually) made to be cheap and not operate at full load. Maybe 5% will fail under continuous full load. Put 16 in a cluster and now you are looking at a 60% chance of a single failure.

ALWAYS ditch the bundled AC adapter and use a single, good quality, high power PSU that branches out to all the boards. 5 volts and 40 amps, for example. These PSUs are more like 99.9% reliable, and as a bonus output much cleaner power.

The only reason that this guy had success with Chromebooks is because laptop PSUs are typically sized at 3x capacity (for battery charging). Running a stock PSU 24x7 but only at 30% output greatly reduces the failure rate.

edit:

http://www.systemcall.eu/blog/2014/06/trashing-chromebooks/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7876235

Besides ignoring the power supplies, the original author used SD cards on the HK boards instead of eMMC, which is another reliability no-no. Though HK is pretty good about shipping quality PSUs with their hardware, so I suspect it was uSD being flaky in this guy's case.

Do you have a link? This sounds like an interesting problem.

I think those are 15" MBPs, their stock power supplies are rated for 85W, so we're looking at a maximum draw of just over 8kW for the laptops alone.