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Sun to Give Niagara Servers to Reviewers
abdulzis writes "Sun Micro's Jonathan Schwartz says that Sun is giving away free servers to bloggers who do a good job reviewing their servers. From the blog article: 'if you write a blog that fairly assesses the machine's performance (positively or negatively), send us a pointer, we're likely to let you keep the machine'" Mr. Schwartz, if you're reading this, feel free to send us one with "Attn: CowboyNeal" on the label.
The primary differentiator is not CPU power, but I/O bandwidth. Even with SATA drives, PC architectures still don't handle the I/O bandwidth that servers can handle. That's the same reason mainframes are still around - although raw CPU power on a mainframe is not as much as on a server or even a workstation, they can throw data around like nobody's business.
So I get a server from Sun. Does that just mean I get a fast computer with a shitty audio and video card? Limited expansion slots?
Since this particular server is a Niagara Server, it has the Ultrasparc T1 chip. That's the big difference. This chip has 8 cores and each core can run 4 threads at the same time for a total of 32 threads of execution. So, IF you're running a web or application server, you will be able to support a LOT more users than a single core or even dual core processor for about the same price of a high end Wintel or Lintel box. Also, this chip uses a fraction of the power that a PC uses. Since servers are always on, this is a big deal for saving money in a data center. The total power consumption is about 70 watts. The Intel Chips use more than 100 watts. I don't know about expansion slots or video card actually, but if you care about that on this box, you're missing the point.
No Sigs!
Before leaving the factory, the platters on every single enterprise class drive receive extensive testing. That is why SCSIs still have a 5 year warranty from Seagate, because every single drive has been tested and meets certain criteria.
In case you weren't aware, Seagate's SATA drives also come with 5 year replacement warranties.
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There are differences in the hardware of mainframes, unix/as400 servers, pc servers and pc's. Most differences surround reliability (redundancy etc.) and parallel processing (multiple CPU's, multiple specialized processors controlling IO, etc. etc.) Here are a couple examples:
IO controller cache with error correcting checksum in memory and redundant power supply to ensure zero loss of data short of taking a sledgehammer to the thing.
Mainframe CPU - parity checking with automatic transaction rollback on error detection at the hardware level (on the CPU). This is why banks use mainframes, so they know the transaction completed, or didn't, no in between.
You get a LOANER server. At the end of 30 days, you have the option of buying it, or mailing it back, insured, at your expense, or taking the chance they like your bribed-for review. For 99% of the people that read Slashdot, that means you're out $60 bucks. That's a *long* way from getting a free server.
I'm not aware of any manufacturer outside the milspec arena that guarantees to test every component individually.
Modern manufacturing is statistical. You test n components out of each lot of 1000. If more than m fail, the lot is "rejected". In the case of high-cost manufacturing, the "rejected" lot will be individually tested so any good pieces can be salvaged.
If you want tested components, the "grey" refurb/retest units are the ones that have actually been tested. Those which "passed" the lot sampling were not individually tested.
Warranties are also purely statistical. They don't guarantee the drive will actually last that long, they just provide MTBF numbers, figure 24x7 server operation, and that provides the number of years the drive is expected to survive. You still get occasional failures, hence RAID-5/6 storage servers.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.