PRESS RELEASE 13 September 2005

Apple Updates Xserve RAID

Delivers up to 7TB of Storage at Industry Breakthrough Price of Just £1.34 (inc VAT) per GB

CUPERTINO, California - September 13th, 2005
Apple today updated its Xserve RAID storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system to deliver a massive 7 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity at the industry's most aggressive price of just £1.34 (inc VAT) per GB. Apple also upgraded its Xserve 1U rack optimised server with up to three 500GB drives, achieving a groundbreaking 1.5TB of storage. Prices for Xserve still start at just £1,872 (inc VAT) and prices for Xserve RAID at just £4,349 (inc VAT).
“Apple has shipped an impressive 76 petabytes of Xserve RAID storage in the last two years”, said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We are now offering our users more capacity at an even lower price per gigabyte”.
The unique architecture of Xserve RAID delivers massive storage density and incredible performance. Designed with 14 independent 500GB Ultra ATA drive channels, Xserve RAID provides up to 7TB of storage capacity with pricing as low as £1.34 (inc VAT) per GB, while the dual independent RAID controllers with 512MB cache per controller offer sustained throughput of over 385MBps — high enough to support the most demanding media production environments using protected RAID level 5. Xserve RAID is certified to run in Mac OS X, Windows, NetWare, SUSE and Red Hat Linux environments.
The Xserve 1U rack optimised server can now hold up to three 500GB drives to achieve a groundbreaking 1.5TB of hot-plug storage. With dual 64-bit 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 processors that deliver over 35 gigaflops of processing power per system and the industry's fastest front side 1U server system bus, running at up to 1.15GHz with up to 9.2GBps of bandwidth per processor and Mac OS X Server version 10.4 “Tiger” installed, it is the ideal server for everything from file and print serving to computational clusters.
Xserve RAID connects easily to any Xserve server or Power Mac desktop system using the dual-channel 2GB Apple Fibre Channel PCI-X card sold separately at an industry breakthrough price of £349 (inc VAT) and works seamlessly with Xsan, Apple's 64-bit cluster file system for Mac OS X to deliver a powerful, easy-to-manage, enterprise class SAN solution at a breakthrough low price that enables organisations to consolidate storage resources and provide multiple computers with concurrent file-level read/write access to shared volumes over Fibre Channel.
Apple offers a choice of world-class services and support programs for Xserve RAID including 4-hour on-site response, 24x7 technical support, AppleCare Service Parts Kits and the AppleCare Professional SupportLine and Tools programme.
Pricing & Availability:
The new Xserve RAID is available today through the Apple Store and Apple Authorised Resellers. Xserve RAID comes in three standard configurations, or can be fully customised to meet specific customer requirements. Build-to-order options can include additional Apple Drive Modules and cache battery modules.
Xserve RAID with a suggested retail price of £4,349 (inc VAT) includes:
  • 1TB RAID 0 total available storage;
  • dual independent RAID controllers with 512MB cache per controller;
    • dual 2GB Fibre Channel SFP ports with 200MBps throughput per channel;
  • four 250GB ATA Apple Drive Modules; and
  • 8MB on-drive cache.
Xserve RAID with a suggested retail price of £6,149 (inc VAT) includes:
  • 3.5TB RAID 0 total available storage;
  • dual independent RAID controllers with 512MB cache per controller;
  • dual 2GB Fibre Channel SFP ports with 200MBps throughput per channel;
  • seven 500GB ATA Apple Drive Modules; and
  • 8MB on-drive cache.
Xserve RAID with a suggested retail price of £9,399 (inc VAT) includes:
  • 7TB RAID 0 total available storage;
    • dual independent RAID controllers with 512MB cache per controller;
  • dual 2GB Fibre Channel SFP ports with 200MBps throughput per channel;
  • fourteen 500GB ATA Apple Drive Modules; and
  • 8MB on-drive cache.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, Mac OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store.
Press Contacts:
Apple UK and Ireland Public Relations
Email: media.uk@apple.com
Phone: +44 (0)20 8218 1440
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