Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 28, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Apple’s supposedly innovative design shape for the round workstation has not only led to many joke images on various online platforms. Sonnet also sees it as limiting the professional potential of the Mac Pro and promptly turns it back into a rectangular workstation by placing the Apple workstation in a four-rack-unit-high rackmount enclosure for expansion purposes.
Sonnet’s solution expands the Mac Pro via its Thunderbolt 2 interfaces by three PCle slots. Two 5.25" drive bays for additional SSDs, HDDs or optical drives, including their own power supply, are also optionally available.
Sonnet states that despite additional fans, the enclosure is expected to be very quiet and will be available from June 2014 for around 1,500 dollars.
You can find a detailed test of the Mac Pro in the current DP issue 02/14, "No Alternative".
All further information about the xMac Pro Server is available here.
