Slashdot Mirror
New Machines From Sun
Another reader, nameless for his or her own protection, writes with more Sun hardware information: "Sun / Cobalt announced their new XTR machine ... I know a bit about it from their beta but couldn't say anything due to non-disclosure until they announced it.
It's not an AMD chip as has been reported, it uses Intel Coppermine P3's running up to 933 Mhz (or at least that's the highest they offer right now). Apparently the P3 was picked for lower heat/power consumption and so that they can do SMP in the near future. The unit we saw had a 2nd socket for SMP but the BIOS and software is not ready for it for this release. I'm guessing in another 6 months or so they'll release an SMP version.
This unit also had standard IDE drives in the 4 (yep, 4 all available in the front) hotswap bays but the sleds and backplane look like their considering SCA SCSI drives in the future, all they need to do is swap the controller card and drives and everything is ready since the controller is no longer built-in to the motherboard and the backplane has SCA connectors (the sled adapts the IDE drive to an SCA connector)."
That X1, besides giving you a rack-mounted 400MHz UltraSPARC for your under-a-grand, has what I think is the largest silkscreened logo I've ever seen on a computer. Why don't they just admit they want to and start hiring graphic artists from skateboard companies?
The 220R is much different from the E250 (which, btw, is rackmountable). Yes, both support two CPUs. Yes, both support 2GB of RAM. Yes, both are PCI. But the 220R is 4U and holds two internal SCSI disks. The E250 is 6U and holds 6.
Ditto for the 420R/E450. The 420R is essentially the same as the 220R, except that it supports 4 CPUs and 4GB of RAM. The E450 is the same, except that it supports up to 20 internal SCSI disks.
As for the X1, it supports more than just one drive and 128MB of RAM. The base model just comes configured that way. The X1 would make a more-than-adquate web/name/mail server most businesses. Yes, what a suprise that you DON'T need a 800Mhz chip to run these services. Or even multiple chips.
I realize that slashdot is a Linux site, but why would you want to run something other than Solaris on a MODERN sun box?
Solaris is a very good operating system, and I have found it more suitable for the databases and programs that I work with. (No, I am not interested in Postgre or mySQL, don't flame please)
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
This throws a lot of stuff out the window. I'm completely blown away that Sun have done this.
:)
Say you're putting together a hosting provider or other such consumer of rackmounted gear. Go to your boss and suggest you either buy:
a, VALinux 1120's for $1400 each.
b, BSDi 1210's for $1300 each.
c, 'Proper' sun boxes for $1000 each.
No brainer, particularly with Sun's excellent reputation.
And before you start flaming away, consider what this does to 1U dell boxes running win2k server... like, two and a half grand? BWaaaahahahahahaaa! Fuck you Bill!
They're going to sell millions of these things. And do not, for one second, underestimate the good this is going to do Unix.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I am one of SuSE's SPARC/Linux developers. Currently, I don't think Linux will run on one of those machines. If you look at their Product White Paper, you'll see (from the description and pictures) that the machine has both an UltraSPARC-IIe processor and an ALi PCI chipset. The US-IIe, while probably easy to add support for, just isn't known to the kernel currently. The ALi PCI chipset is a new thing for SPARC machines. Also, the machine has USB ports that the SPARC/Linux port won't currently take advantage of. Support will, of course, be worked on... just have patience. :)