[geeks] Shrinking the Sun Farm

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 @ 14:27 -0500, Lionel Peterson said:

> <Mind control>
> You Want More Ultra 2s
> </Mind control>

Yeah, I hear the voice... :)

> Seriously, Ultra 2s are great little boxes, but I'm becoming impressed
> with the E420r systems I've just started playing with.

Oh, I like my Ultras. Once I learned to keep the fans, I don't get red
state exceptions any more.

The 420... I think that's too big for me right now. I'd love to have one
large Sun to do it all, but the power requirements, size, and heat make
it prohibitive.

> 1 Gig. A good alternative might be to look for a Cycle Quad 4-way
> desktop (essentially an E450 in a U2-sized cabinet (I have one I could
> shed, for a small price), 

Yeah, I really like 2 and 4 way SMP. It makes things smoother, even if
you have less raw power than a single modern CPU, and plus it is fun to
play with parallel programming.

> or more U2s - the U2s take up to 2 Gig of RAM (Cycle Quad takes up
> to 4 Gig), and each only accepts two HDs, but a 6 or 12 slot drive
> cabinet isn't too expensive if more drives are needed).

I've thought about a U80, but they are still pretty expensive.

However, it's one of the smallest systems with 4-way SMP, and thus
desirable.

Drive cabinets aren't too bad if you get older used units, but the
drives are still quite expensive.

What would be really nice is someone releasing a controller for older
Sun's that supported SATA.

Either that, or the industry could start making 7200 rpm SCSI drives
again. That's all I need most of the time, not the screamers.

I would not mind having a desktop Sun and KVM it with my PC. I guess it
would be easiest if the Sun in question used PC keyboards and mice.


-- 
shannon           | I wish life was not so short. Languages take such a time, 
                  | and so do all the things one wants to know about. 
                  |        -- J. R. R. Tolkien