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The mechanics of this are pretty neat. But the photography in the article is incredibly distracting. Does every shot have to be at an off-kilter angle? If this

The mechanics of this are pretty neat. But the photography in the article is incredibly distracting. Does every shot have to be at an off-kilter angle? If this is a story about engineering, how about some head-on shots of the engineered thing. I get that the Mac Pro is a beautiful object, but this isn't about the mac. It's about the rack, and none of these photos let me understand it in one shot.

skuhn 11y ago
Do the two pictures at the very end, which are a profile and rear view of the rack, convey what you're looking for?
damon_c 11y ago
I agree, I think. To me the interesting part about putting Mac Pros in a rack is integrating its relatively unusual approach to air flow. None of these pictures really show how that is accomplished here. In fact many of them seem to be deliberately hiding that specific aspect.
- skuhn 11y ago
  (I'm the datacenter manager at imgix, and I wrote this article) I had originally intended there to be a totally disassembled chassis with an airflow overlay on top, but it turned into a lot of work. All of the chassis were already assembled by the time we took the pictures. The high level view is that air is drawn in to the vent on the front right, which has a separate channel that all 4 Pros sit in. They are sealed in place, so the air has to pass into each Pro's air intake to go anywhere. The other side of the chassis is open to the back of the rack and holds each Pro's exhaust vent. I'll go through the photos we took and see if there's something that would help to illustrate this better.
  - damon_c 11y ago
    They're really nice pics and you did a great job explaining everything!
theandrewbailey 11y ago
I was bothered by the extreme depth of field in images next to the text.
skuhn 11y ago
We added another wider shot of the chassis, but here are two others that didn't go in to hopefully give you a better sense of how the chassis actually looks: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6jwqwxsu50zvhrw/_1090440.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6jwqwxsu50zvhrw/_1090440.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7rej2uusmg2a3w/_1110402.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7rej2uusmg2a3w/_1110402.jpg?dl=0

skuhn 11y ago

Do the two pictures at the very end, which are a profile and rear view of the rack, convey what you're looking for?

damon_c 11y ago

I agree, I think. To me the interesting part about putting Mac Pros in a rack is integrating its relatively unusual approach to air flow. None of these pictures really show how that is accomplished here. In fact many of them seem to be deliberately hiding that specific aspect.

skuhn 11y ago
(I'm the datacenter manager at imgix, and I wrote this article) I had originally intended there to be a totally disassembled chassis with an airflow overlay on top, but it turned into a lot of work. All of the chassis were already assembled by the time we took the pictures. The high level view is that air is drawn in to the vent on the front right, which has a separate channel that all 4 Pros sit in. They are sealed in place, so the air has to pass into each Pro's air intake to go anywhere. The other side of the chassis is open to the back of the rack and holds each Pro's exhaust vent. I'll go through the photos we took and see if there's something that would help to illustrate this better.
- damon_c 11y ago
  They're really nice pics and you did a great job explaining everything!

theandrewbailey 11y ago

I was bothered by the extreme depth of field in images next to the text.

skuhn 11y ago

We added another wider shot of the chassis, but here are two others that didn't go in to hopefully give you a better sense of how the chassis actually looks: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6jwqwxsu50zvhrw/_1090440.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6jwqwxsu50zvhrw/_1090440.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7rej2uusmg2a3w/_1110402.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/n7rej2uusmg2a3w/_1110402.jpg?dl=0