4 ms·

Unlike the old rack mount options for the trashcan Mac Pro units (eg https://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros https://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros), it do

Unlike the old rack mount options for the trashcan Mac Pro units (eg https://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros https://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros), it doesn't seem like much thought has been given here to a front-to-back airflow. I'm also surprised they're touting the density of this solution— seems like the obvious thing would be to put the Minis on their sides. A 4U chassis has 17.5cm vertical space in it, and a Mac Mini is 17cm wide. With the Mini being 2in in height, that suggests 8-9 Minis in a 4U rack, vs 2 Minis in a 2U rack for Scaleway's trays. EDIT: Here's a commercially-available solution that's 6/4U: https://www.mk1manufacturing.com/Rack-Mount-for-6-M4-mac-minis-p102.html https://www.mk1manufacturing.com/Rack-Mount-for-6-M4-mac-min..., you'd think it could basically be this but with the management plane behind or in front. And as others have said, making the management plane be more shared, so it's not 1:1.

tecleandor 11mo ago
Yep! I would have thought about doing a 3d printed "tray" that goes under the mini and routes front/cold and back/hot air to the exterior of the rack...
notpeter 11mo ago
This is what MacStadium does. Here's a drawer design for the previous gen intel macs: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687e650a56916806eaaf8f62/68eef263ba6df96fa9623c9e_f698c610-29ea-4431-9e95-38eb776a6f9b_dc-minidrawer.webp https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687e650a56916806eaaf8f62/... You can find a bunch more detail in their related patent filings: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240397658A1/en?q=(%22macstadium%22)&oq=%22macstadium%22 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240397658A1/en?q=(%22m...
- mikepurvis 11mo ago
  I was thinking the units all face the front in a shallow drawer, whereas MS is doing a deep drawer, which is almost certainly even better for density.
averageRoyalty 11mo ago
For anyone reading along at home, 2 inches is just over 5cm.
- mikepurvis 11mo ago
  Yeah sorry for mixing units like that. I think of it as a 19" rack and know that refers to the width, but I had to look up the height of a 4U chassis and Google told it to me in cm, so then I went with that for that dimension.
  - averageRoyalty 11mo ago
    Totally fine, my brain just isn't used to processing imperial measurements in the same sentence as metric, so I thought the conversion might help others in the same place!
jabberwhookie 11mo ago
> Each rack can hold up to 96 Mac minis, Sounds like 2 per 1U to me. I think it's power efficiency that limits filling a rack with typical 1U servers in most plans. The power efficiency here is probably not really impressive enough given so many power units, etc.
- mikepurvis 11mo ago
  Yeah I'm a bit confused on that. In the picture, each row is definitely taller than the power strip, plus 1U is 44.45mm in height, whereas the current-gen Mac Mini is 50mm high. I'm pretty sure the drawers are 2U, but given that I don't know how they would get 96 nodes in a standard 42U rack.

tecleandor 11mo ago

Yep! I would have thought about doing a 3d printed "tray" that goes under the mini and routes front/cold and back/hot air to the exterior of the rack...

notpeter 11mo ago

This is what MacStadium does. Here's a drawer design for the previous gen intel macs: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687e650a56916806eaaf8f62/68eef263ba6df96fa9623c9e_f698c610-29ea-4431-9e95-38eb776a6f9b_dc-minidrawer.webp https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687e650a56916806eaaf8f62/... You can find a bunch more detail in their related patent filings: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240397658A1/en?q=(%22macstadium%22)&oq=%22macstadium%22 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240397658A1/en?q=(%22m...

mikepurvis 11mo ago
I was thinking the units all face the front in a shallow drawer, whereas MS is doing a deep drawer, which is almost certainly even better for density.

averageRoyalty 11mo ago

For anyone reading along at home, 2 inches is just over 5cm.

mikepurvis 11mo ago
Yeah sorry for mixing units like that. I think of it as a 19" rack and know that refers to the width, but I had to look up the height of a 4U chassis and Google told it to me in cm, so then I went with that for that dimension.
- averageRoyalty 11mo ago
  Totally fine, my brain just isn't used to processing imperial measurements in the same sentence as metric, so I thought the conversion might help others in the same place!

jabberwhookie 11mo ago

> Each rack can hold up to 96 Mac minis, Sounds like 2 per 1U to me. I think it's power efficiency that limits filling a rack with typical 1U servers in most plans. The power efficiency here is probably not really impressive enough given so many power units, etc.

mikepurvis 11mo ago
Yeah I'm a bit confused on that. In the picture, each row is definitely taller than the power strip, plus 1U is 44.45mm in height, whereas the current-gen Mac Mini is 50mm high. I'm pretty sure the drawers are 2U, but given that I don't know how they would get 96 nodes in a standard 42U rack.