[link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/04/apple_ships_xsan/|http://www.theregist...apple_ships_xsan/]

Retailing for $999/\ufffd699 for each client and server on the network, Xsan is pitched at professional video and high-performance computing types who want to provide an easy way to connect Fibre Channel-based consolidated storage systems to a regular network.

Calling the price-point a "breakthrough", Apple has in the past claimed that Xsan works out at around half the price of rival offerings from the likes of Avid, SGI and IBM. The company made much of the fact that its pricing the product on the basis of how many computers are connected up, rather than the network capacity.

However, Apple is keen that buyers use its Xserve servers and Xserve RAID rigs as metadata controllers and storage pools on the other side of the Fibre Channel switch from the clients. Apple has qualified FC switches from Brocade, QLogic and Emulex.