September 18 - 10:35am EDT   Atempo today announced Mac releases of its Atempo Digital Archive (ADA) and Digital Archive for Messaging (ADAM) software, with support for Apple's Xserve and Final Cut Server. ADA allows automated transfer of data from a primary disk to archives. End-users have access to a client interface, which lets them drag and drop files from source directories to archives. [full story]

July 21 - 5:10pm EDT   As a part of its Q3 2008 financial results, Apple has posted explicit figures for sales by region, sector and product. The bulk of sales were of course in the Americas, where the company sold slightly over 1.1 million CPU units, producing a revenue of approximately $3.4 billion. The next-largest market was Europe, with 576,000 units and revenues of $1.6 billion. The retail sector, measured separately, is said to have accounted for 476,000 units, and revenue of $1.4 billion. Japan amounted to only 102,000 units and $365 million in revenue, but Apple supplemented this with $571 million from "other segments," including FileMaker and Asia Pacific streams. [full story]

June 28 - 4:10pm EDT   ZDNet has announced what it says is the first tool for overclocking the Mac Pro. Windows options for overclocking are prevalent, but none have been available for the Mac Pro, according to ZDNet. It claims that the new software, called ZDNet Clock, is capable of speed increases of 15 to 20 percent, and most computers with 2.8GHz chips should be able to meet or exceed 3.2 GHz. The version 1.0 software supports Intel processors on a Mac Pro or Xserve and requires Max OS X 10.5; it is available for download now, free of charge. [full story]

June 18 - 4:25pm EDT   Following only a day after the release of Parallels Server for Mac, Media Temple has begun a private beta of (xv) (Xserve-Virtual), a new hosting service. The company takes Parallels Server, and combines it with Apple's Xserve hardware to run virtualized copies of Mac OS X Leopard Server. The primary advantage of this is said to be lower price overhead than a dedicated Leopard server, while still retaining access to flexible resources. [full story]

June 16 - 11:10pm EDT  Apple on Monday unveiled Xserve EFI Firmware Update 1.1 for Intel Xserve servers, stating that the patch offers users improved stability when applied. As with most recent Apple updates, little is revealed about what problems the update resolves; it is not known whether "stability improvements" refers to freezing, kernel panics, or other miscellaneous temporary failures. Xserve EFI Firmware Update 1.1 is available from Apple's support website, and through Software Update. [full story]

May 15 - 6:55pm EDT   HighPoint Technologies recently announced a new firmware update to the RocketRAID 3522 SATA hardware RAID controller, which will support booting to Mac OS X on Apple Mac Pro and Xserve models released from (2006 through 2008). The RocketRAID 3522 is a PCI-Express x8 external hardware RAID controller with Intel IOP 341 (800MHz) RAID engine and will support up to 8 SATA hard drives. [full story]

April 10 - 4:30pm EDT   Kingston today announced availability of 800MHz DDR2 fully buffered DIMMS, designed to fit in the new Mac Pro and Xserve computers, in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities. The memory comes in paired sets, which ultimately allow for 25.6GB per second transfer speeds when the Mac Pro is fully outfitted. As with all Kingston memory, each chip features a lifetime warranty. Kingston is selling the memory modules starting at $180 for the 2GB chips. [full story]

February 19 - 12:45pm EST   Despite today's unveiling of the Xsan 2 file system, Apple quietly discontinued the Xserve RAID platform, with any references to the hard drive system absent from the online store. The only mention of enterprise-level RAID hard drive products is that of the Promise VTrak system, for which Apple is also selling a number of service parts as well. The VTrak RAID systems range from 4.8TB to 16TB, and are configured with either SATA or SAS drives. [full story]

January 21 - 6:10pm EST   Nexsan has announced the the SATABeast Xi, a high density, energy efficient storage solution built and optimized for the Apple Xserve and Mac Pro. The solution offers up to 42TB of storage in 4U of rack space, and features AutoMAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks). This allows SATABeast Xi to place its disk drives in an idle state to conserve energy yet provide near-instantaneous access to data. The unit also offers dual function Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity at wire-speed performance. The SATABeast Xi is designed for primary storage of large data set applications like uncompressed, real-time HDTV as well as multi-stream and analog TV signals and video editing. [full story]

December 11 - 5:30pm EST   Apple's online store is once again offering reconditioned Xserve Quad Xeon server systems, as well as its Apple TV set top box at discounted rates. Refurbished Xserve 2.66GHz Quad Xeon servers each feature 1GB of memory, an 80GB hard drive, and Mac OS X Server 10.4 Unlimited-Client Edition for $2,999. Apple's faster Xserve 3.0GHz Quad Xeon servers with 1GB of memory, an 80GB hard, and Mac OS X Server 10.4 Unlimited-Client Edition are each available for $3,799. Reconditioned Apple TVs with 40GB and 160GB hard drives are also available for $229 and $339, respectively. [full story]

November 29 - 12:00pm EST  Alongside its iPod software updates, Apple has released Xserve Lights-Out Management Firmware Update 1.1 for its high-density, 1U rackmount server. The Xserve The update includes changes to the Lights-Out Management environment for the Intel-based Xserve. Apple said it addresses the intermittent issue that causes the LOM port to be unresponsive. This update is strongly recommended for all Intel-based Xserve systems. The Xserve Lights-Out Management Firmware Update 1.1 application will be installed into the "/Applications/Server" folder of the selected volume, according the documentation. Users must then run the firmware update application -- either through the Finder or via the command line-- ... [full story]