[Misanthrope]

The thought just occured to me:

If I were to have a standard IDE hard drive lying around, could I just install it into one of the bays inside of an Xserve, or do I have to sell my first unborn child to Apple for a 160GB module?

Thank ya kindly.

[geekwagon]

Originally posted by Misanthrope:
The thought just occured to me:

If I were to have a standard IDE hard drive lying around, could I just install it into one of the bays inside of an Xserve, or do I have to sell my first unborn child to Apple for a 160GB module?

Thank ya kindly.

You would need to buy the sled the drive goes into from Apple or have one sitting around unused. I'm sure they are spendy if you buy them without the drive.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by geekwagon:
You would need to buy the sled the drive goes into from Apple or have one sitting around unused. I'm sure they are spendy if you buy them without the drive.

You CANNOT buy the modules without a drive.

Apple does extensive and exhaustive testing on the ADMs, to ensure the drives are "perfect" -- meaning no soft errors on the drive. This ensures a long service life.

Recall, ADMs are designed for *server* use. They're going to be up and running 24x7 for 3 years, or more. Apple doesn't want people taking their crap IDE drives (let's say the drives you buy at NewEgg or Fry's do NOT go through the same testing -- and frequently they're the drives that Apple already rejected, being sold as new because they're not bad yet...) and putting in an Xserve and complaining when they blow up.

Plus, ADMs aren't 160... they're 60 or 180 GB :-)

[Misanthrope]

Looks like I'm going to have to get some credit.