EEVblog #882 - Dumpster Dive Apple Xserve Computers

Dumpster diving time!
Dave fishes out some Apple Xserve rack mount server computers and tears them down.

Dupster dive Powermacs:

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[MrTVintro]

Plexi top cover on it, some legs and they might make a nice table.

[reddragon]

I installed an XServe G5 back in 2004. It was solidly reliable - never missed a beat! It stayed in service for about 8 years!

[kellenflott]

Used to have a couple of these at a company I worked at. The hard drive trays were spring loaded making it super easy to break the RAID if you forgot to engage the lock... and if you did lock it, the USB ports were disabled which could be quite inconvenient such as having software that required USB dongle for licensing.

[electronicsNmore]

I have found so many great electronic items in the trash over the years. Some I repaired and sold for a very good price. Great video.

[TheOnlyPsycho]

Apart from the power supply and the fans, the case itself with some modification would work great for a fileserver, or external SATA raid drive case of a file server. I mean rack cases start from at least 100e.

[azenetmc]

These were great hardware-wise back then. Still got one running after 10+ years of service. (they get louder when starting back up after a power failure)

[Tomato]

The "MAC-thing" was actually standard FireWire, IEEE-1394

[PelDaddy]

In rackmount gear airflow is front to back. The fans are blowing towards the rear.

[robfenwitch]

Surely, those blowers draw air from the space below and blow it across the processor?

[ChipGuy]

Intel FW 21154 is a PCI-PCI bridge. IIRC 64 bit. TSB81BA3 is a Firewire controller of some sort. M3062N.... seems to be a Renesas microcontroller.

[reddragon]

Blower fans work the opposite way to how you described. :)

[JohnGotts]

Old hardware like this is actually quite useful to the right people. I'm a programmer, and a lot of software out there has a 20+ year lifespan. The oldest code in Android dates back to 1991 at least. Desktop Linux systems have GNU software dating to the mid-80's. Hardware has become so fast as of late that you can simply run the same old software, with security updates, on the same old hardware for 10-15 years without any problems whatsoever. With RAID it doesn't matter if hard drives die. Everything else is equally modular. In the rack you aren't running modern, bloated Windows applications. Instead, you're running efficient, purpose-built software that runs great on 1 GHz processors.

[ChaZcaTriX]

About the size and noise: both are normal even for modern servers.

Mainstream servers are typically 700-800mm deep (can be over 900mm for larger, say, 4-socket servers). As for the fans - if they spin up to maximum RPM (e.g. if a fan failure occurs and the other fans compensate for it) typical rack devices are deafeningly loud.

[NaoPb]

Are you sure the fans are not sucking up air from below and blowing it through the heatsink?

Oh, and could you tear apart a Delta power supply once? I've heard you say that Delta power supplies are good quality in multiple videos, but I'd like to know what you think it is that makes them good quality.

[Moxzot]

I think you might be a little slow on blower fans they suck from the bottom and blow out the side although you were kinda right they did have tight ventilation on the intake

[Slartibartfas]

In fact this kind of "Squirrel-cage"-fans is used very often in 1HE server cages. It sucks in the air from the base panel and throws out the air with pretty high speed to the back (here, through the cage with the CPU(s). Therefore it sucks in cold air from the front through the hard drive cages because hard drives can't stand that heat and the fan then blows in direction of the hotter modules, like RAM, CPU and expansion cards.

[SteinErikDahle]

This is almost painful to watch, I feel so old... And those beautiful boxes at the end, genuine dream machines! And I'm not even a fanboy, never having owned a single Apple device m..

[johndrachenberg]

The cost would be way too high to ship these to the Hydraulic Press Channel but you should definitely send him something!

[HAL]

really cool that it still works!! that means companies CAN make modern equipment that can work for longer periods. Reliable for 10 years or more and not die on you within 3 years !!

[GeorgesDPrinters]

squirrel cage suck from the center, the use centrifugal force to move air.