[riknos314]

Maybe, there's still a lot of unknowns. The cost and power consumption of the nitro hardware to translate from the mac mini to everything else being the main one.

They're also likely pricing in some form of opportunity cost since the density of physical macs per unit rack space is almost certainly lower than the density of typical server hardware.

[droopyEyelids]

The space question is interesting.

The most common Mac mini rack mount enclosure holds 2 minis in 1ru. I think at amazon's scale they could probably get 4 minis in 1ru with some custom cooling.

how dense do you think instances are on average in the amazon datacenters?

[sieabahlpark]

Why would you not put them on their side and stack them like hard drives? You'd get way more density that way then trying to figure out how to make it fit in 1u for no reason. You could even stack multiple rows deep to get more density.

[adolph]

19 mod 1.4 = 0.8, 0.8 x 7.7 = 6.16 in^2

19 mod 7.7 = 3.6, 3.6 x 1.4 = 5.04 in^2

Presumably the greater waste of bottom side down is in higher number of shelves?

[tyingq]

>The most common Mac mini rack mount enclosure holds 2 minis in 1ru

That sounds wasteful to me. Is that really the most common way for mac hosting companies to do it?

[runako]

https://www.macstadium.com/datacenters

There's an image there that appears to have the units mounted sideways for perhaps 6 minis in 2 RU?

[chx]

At Amazon scale, I imagine they strip the original chassis and use only the motherboard with custom power and cooling for some insane density. As visible here https://youtu.be/R4ArjHz4gd4?t=192 you could save some significant space doing so.

[jpraczyk]

Sorry to disappoint you https://www.servethehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/AWS-...

[kingcharles]

Well, I guess Amazon get to keep their warranty...

[tyingq]

Seems like it would have to be 5U if sideways...the M1 minis are 7.7 inches / 19.7cm tall.

[technobabbler]

Do they have an alternative?

[tyingq]

I imagine you could get 4 in 1U if you used all the depth, and perhaps more dense by putting them onto their side in 4U (maybe 5U..not sure how tall a M1 Mini is). I don't know to what degree cooling is an issue, where you don't want the exhaust of one feeding the inlet of another.

[pantalaimon]

They could simply ditch the case, the board alone is pretty small.