SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — When Apple discontinued the Xserve server last year, there was a huge outcry from the IT crowd.
But as one school in Hawaii has demonstrated, the Xserve platform is a dinosaur.
“The entire lab uses less power than a blow dryer,” said director Dr. Bill Wiecking, speaking here at Macworld.
According to Dr. Wiecking, an Xserve in sleep mode uses more power than a Mac mini HDMI going full blast on all cores.
“Not a lot of people know that,” he said.
Although Mac mini servers aren’t good for everything, they are perfect for a smaller institution like HPA. The Lab discontinued its six Xserve servers and now has eight Mac mini servers serving 60 MacBooks/Pros and three i7 iMacs.
The future of computing is clearly lightweight, low-power and portable, Dr. Wiecking said.
“Change is on the way,” he said. “You can either be a victim of it or a change agent.”