> Given recent history, that's not going to be for a number of years.
That is something that no one outside of Apple can say for certain. It doesn't even have to be a major change, but something like rearranging ports, adjusting taper or extrusions on the chassis, etc. Those kinds of adjustments happen all the time on consumer hardware, and most people don't notice, but may be an issue if you're trying to fit into precision machined slots.
> Hardware will almost always cost less than engineers.
For commodity, off-the-shelf hardware, absolutely. This is anything but, and still requires engineering effort to design, fabricate and assemble. And it's not always about the immediate dollars: sometimes a fundamental reworking means sacrificing short-term savings in favor of the long-term: flexibility, risk mitigation, reduced operational complexity, and cost over successive generations of hardware.
There are definitely risks, but I do want to gently re-iterate that we're not blind to them.
About the only thing that Apple could do that would render this chassis obsolete is to substantially change the exterior dimensions of the Mac Pro. Obviously if it's a different shape, we would have to adjust things.
If they kept the same shape but modified it somehow, the only dimensional change that would be truly tough to accommodate is an increase to circumference. This is the dimension with the least wiggle room built-in, and it would cause some headache. We would probably have to sacrifice some density by removing 1 chassis from the rack.
Otherwise, changes to ports or minor adjustments to the length of the chassis can all be accommodated for in this chassis design.
> There are definitely risks, but I do want to gently re-iterate that we're not blind to them.
Yep, I was just responding to the assertion that it wasn't a risk.
For what it's worth, it does sound like you've thought this through really carefully, and thanks for taking the time to explain so thoroughly and respond to everyone.
That is something that no one outside of Apple can say for certain. It doesn't even have to be a major change, but something like rearranging ports, adjusting taper or extrusions on the chassis, etc. Those kinds of adjustments happen all the time on consumer hardware, and most people don't notice, but may be an issue if you're trying to fit into precision machined slots.
> Hardware will almost always cost less than engineers.
For commodity, off-the-shelf hardware, absolutely. This is anything but, and still requires engineering effort to design, fabricate and assemble. And it's not always about the immediate dollars: sometimes a fundamental reworking means sacrificing short-term savings in favor of the long-term: flexibility, risk mitigation, reduced operational complexity, and cost over successive generations of hardware.