As we have discussed many times before the New Mac Pro may be a beautiful machine, an impressive piece of design and engineering but for anyone one needing pci-e slots and adding lots of hardware it doesn’t come up to the mark. Once it became clear that it was OK on its side, we have seen a number of rack mounted solutions but so far none have gone all the way to meet the needs of those of us that would like to use Pro Tools HD Native or HDX cards and hardware.

Well worry no more, Sonnet, who we announced at BVE subject to Avid making the official announcement are now approved for Pro Tools, have announced the new xMac Pro Server to we available in June 2014.

Sonnet xMac Pro Server Features

The xMac Pro Server has 3 PCIe Slots and you can have either, three full-length full-height single-width cards, or one double-width card plus one single-width card and comes with Thunderbolt 2 Interface straight out of the box. It has an Integrated 300W power supply provides plenty of power for any cards you install as well as a 75W auxiliary PCIe power connector enables use of power hungry cards such as the Avid Pro Tools|HDX.

You can fit additional storage devices using optional Mobile Rack Device Mounting Kits so you can install HDDs, SSDs, a tape or optical drive, and more inside the xMac Pro Server’s enclosure.

Sonnet are claiming it is remarkably quiet with temperature-controlled, variable-speed fans automatically and quietly cool the cards. Although we haven’t heard the xMac Pro Server yet we were very impressed with the chassis that we checked out on the HHB and Holdan stands at BVE earlier this year.

It has been designed for rack mount use with the power button and USB 3 socket on the front and everything else tucked away on the back panel. Finally Sonnet are offering a 5-Year Warranty included at no additional cost.

So finally it looks like we have a Pro Tools friendly solution for the new Mac Pro and if you check out the tests that community member Grant Hall undertook comparing Pro Tools 11 on an older 2010 Mac Pro with a new 2013 Mac Pro there may well be benefits to Pro Tools users in having the new Mac ro and now Sonnet have given us a solution to make the new Mac Pro Pro Tools friendly.