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The Mac Studio isn’t meant for data centers anyway? It’s a small and silent desktop form factor — in every respect the opposite of a design you’d want to put in
by pavlov 2y ago
The Mac Studio isn’t meant for data centers anyway? It’s a small and silent desktop form factor — in every respect the opposite of a design you’d want to put in a rack.
A long time ago Apple had a rackmount server called Xserve, but there’s no sign that they’re interested in updating that for the AI age.
- bigyabai 2y agoIt's the Ultra chip, the same one that goes into the rackmount Mac Pro. I don't think there's much confusion as to who this is for. > there’s no sign that they’re interested in updating that for the AI age. https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
- pavlov 2y agoI genuinely forgot the Mac Pro still exists. It’s been so long since I even saw one. And I’ve had every previous Mac tower design since 1999: G4, G5, the excellent dual Xeon, the horrible black trash can… But Apple Silicon delivers so much punch in the Studio form factor, the old school Pro has become very niche. Edit - looks like the new M3 Ultra is only available in Mac Studio anyway? So the existence of the Pro is moot here.
- choilive 2y agonever understood the hate on the trash can. Isn't the mac studio basically the same idea as the trash can but even less upgradeable?
- pavlov 2y agoThe Mac Studio hit a sweet spot in 2023 that the trash can Mac Pro couldn't ten years earlier. It's mostly thanks to the high integration of Apple Silicon and improved device availability and speed of Thunderbolt. The 2013 Mac Pro was stuck forever with its original choice of Intel CPU and AMD GPU. And it was unfortunately prone to overheating due to these same components.
- wtallis 2y agoThe trash can also suffered from hitting the market right around when the industry gave up on making dual-GPU work.
- MBCook 2y agoYep. It was designed for CPU grunt, and came out right when people swapped to wanting tons of GPU grunt. The cooling solution wasn’t designed for huge GPUs. So it couldn’t really be upgraded in ways most people wanted.
- pjmlp 2y agoFolks that want to keep the customisation aspect of Mac Pro hardly see that. In fact a very famous podcaster is still holding out to his.
- TylerE 2y agoThe Studio also hits a sweet spot for home users like me that want tons of IO and no built in input devices.
- Alupis 2y agoOutside of extremely niche use cases, who is racking apple products in 2025?
- nordsieck 2y agoThere's MacMiniVault (nee MacMiniColo) https://www.macminivault.com/ https://www.macminivault.com/ Not sure if they count as niche or not.
- waveringana 2y agogithub for their macos runners (pretty sure theyre m1 minis)
- wpm 2y agoAWS
- kube-system 2y agoEvery provider who offers MacOS in the cloud.
- Alupis 2y agoSo MacOS is still not allowed to be virtualized per the EULA? Wow if that's true...
- kube-system 2y agoMacOS is permitted to be virtualized... as long as the host is a Mac. :)
- wtallis 2y agoThe rackmount Mac Pro is for A/V studios, not datacenters.
- phillco 2y agoDon't forget CI/CD farms for iOS builds, although I think it's much more cost effective to just make Minis or Studios work, despite their nonstandard formfactor
- kridsdale1 2y agoGoogle and Facebook have vast fleets of Minis in custom chassis for this purpose.
- alwillis 2y agoApple recently announced they’re building a new plant in Texas to produce servers. Yes, they need servers for their Private Compute Cloud used by Apple Intelligence, but it doesn’t only need to be for that. From https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more-than-500-billion-usd-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more... As part of its new U.S. investments, Apple will work with manufacturing partners to begin production of servers in Houston later this year. A 250,000-square-foot server manufacturing facility, slated to open in 2026, will create thousands of jobs.