4 ms·

They'd rack mount really great also. Just stack them on top of each other. At 18mm thin you'd be able to go 152 high in a 9ft rack! Good luck hitting numbers li

They'd rack mount really great also. Just stack them on top of each other. At 18mm thin you'd be able to go 152 high in a 9ft rack! Good luck hitting numbers like those with a blade loaded with Xeons. Each one comes with a built-in KVM console, and boy does it look good! Finally, no more pushing that cart with a 17" CRT around the data center so you can use vi in a 40x80 console. These laptop servers have retina screens, baby. Only one question should stand between you and outfitting your data center with MBPs: Space Gray or Silver?

toomanybeersies 10y ago
I'm now imagining the sheer amount of heat that a rack of 152 MBPs would produce. Something around 10 kW I reckon. Enough to heat a house.
jason_slack 10y ago
Since you are talking about racking, I couldn't resist showing how Imgix racks Mac Pro's http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros
- burke 10y ago
  I really want there to be someone that racks these in a honeycomb pattern.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- drcross 10y ago
  That seems like it has really, really bad cost to benefit.
  - jason_slack 10y ago
    I think last time I read they are really tied to an Apple specific infrastructure. It does seem rather expensive for just an aesthetic benefit. They used Mac Mini's before: http://photos.imgix.com/building-a-graphics-card-for-the-internet http://photos.imgix.com/building-a-graphics-card-for-the-int...
    - skuhn 10y ago
      Without getting into the financials, I will say that the $/gflop wasn't bad. A Mac Pro rack was significantly cheaper per system than the next cheapest type of rack we deployed (using Supermicro FatTwin systems, for a different use case). Server hardware is very expensive, and workstation or server class GPU hardware is not cheap either. Mac Pros are not the best price/performance ratio in that class, but they are (even now) within reason. Just because something photographs well, it doesn't mean that caution was thrown to the wind just to get something pretty. It's a datacenter after all, it's meant to facilitate a task. The rationale behind imgix deploying Mac Pros in a datacenter environment was pragmatic and based on certain fixed technical requirements.
- sk5t 10y ago
  It fills me with a certain amount of dread that a company I've never heard of has the time, money, focus, and decision-making process to bring racks of Mac Pros to fruition. In other words, how can one succeed, when others--presumably smart people--are busting their asses and tons of resources on a concept for which I can muster, at the very most charitable angle, moderate disapproval?
  - jason_slack 10y ago
    The essence of competition is quite simple. Anyone in a garage with a great idea can put them out of business. Money doesn't equal success. It may mean you have more at your disposal and can be more wasteful to get to your goals but if your idea isn't sound and nobody pays you lose anyway.
  - achr2 10y ago
    Especially for seemingly basic image processing. The type of decision making that decides to design new rack mounting options for the worst price to performance hardware available is mind boggling.
gcr 10y ago
Have fun cooling that. :-) I wonder how many tons of TNT of energy are contained within a rack full of 152 LiPo batteries...
- alexbock 10y ago
  Not very much, the 15-inch has a 76 Watt-hour battery [1] and putting 152 of those into Wolfram Alpha gives less energy than a gallon of gasoline [2]. [1] http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=76+watt+hours+in+tons+of+tnt+*+152 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=76+watt+hours+in+tons+o...

toomanybeersies 10y ago

I'm now imagining the sheer amount of heat that a rack of 152 MBPs would produce. Something around 10 kW I reckon. Enough to heat a house.

jason_slack 10y ago

Since you are talking about racking, I couldn't resist showing how Imgix racks Mac Pro's http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros

burke 10y ago
I really want there to be someone that racks these in a honeycomb pattern.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
drcross 10y ago
That seems like it has really, really bad cost to benefit.
- jason_slack 10y ago
  I think last time I read they are really tied to an Apple specific infrastructure. It does seem rather expensive for just an aesthetic benefit. They used Mac Mini's before: http://photos.imgix.com/building-a-graphics-card-for-the-internet http://photos.imgix.com/building-a-graphics-card-for-the-int...
  - skuhn 10y ago
    Without getting into the financials, I will say that the $/gflop wasn't bad. A Mac Pro rack was significantly cheaper per system than the next cheapest type of rack we deployed (using Supermicro FatTwin systems, for a different use case). Server hardware is very expensive, and workstation or server class GPU hardware is not cheap either. Mac Pros are not the best price/performance ratio in that class, but they are (even now) within reason. Just because something photographs well, it doesn't mean that caution was thrown to the wind just to get something pretty. It's a datacenter after all, it's meant to facilitate a task. The rationale behind imgix deploying Mac Pros in a datacenter environment was pragmatic and based on certain fixed technical requirements.
sk5t 10y ago
It fills me with a certain amount of dread that a company I've never heard of has the time, money, focus, and decision-making process to bring racks of Mac Pros to fruition. In other words, how can one succeed, when others--presumably smart people--are busting their asses and tons of resources on a concept for which I can muster, at the very most charitable angle, moderate disapproval?
- jason_slack 10y ago
  The essence of competition is quite simple. Anyone in a garage with a great idea can put them out of business. Money doesn't equal success. It may mean you have more at your disposal and can be more wasteful to get to your goals but if your idea isn't sound and nobody pays you lose anyway.
- achr2 10y ago
  Especially for seemingly basic image processing. The type of decision making that decides to design new rack mounting options for the worst price to performance hardware available is mind boggling.

gcr 10y ago

Have fun cooling that. :-) I wonder how many tons of TNT of energy are contained within a rack full of 152 LiPo batteries...

alexbock 10y ago
Not very much, the 15-inch has a 76 Watt-hour battery [1] and putting 152 of those into Wolfram Alpha gives less energy than a gallon of gasoline [2]. [1] http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=76+watt+hours+in+tons+of+tnt+*+152 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=76+watt+hours+in+tons+o...