[HECnet] House heater anyone?

[MG]

On 7-7-2011 10:04, Mark Wickens wrote:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350475648545&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:GB:1123

Fully loaded RX4640 up for GBP 640, that would put a dent in your electricity bill.
Always amazed me that these came with only two drives built in, given the size of the case!

That's a great find, two available even. Thanks for sharing! Beware though, this is not as
loaded out as one of these can be. In fact, for the power it must consume and heat it that
it will dissipate, it's perhaps not a very wise choice (especially for a Hobbyist) and you
might as well max. it out, so at least you'll get a good performance benefit/return on the
power usage.

The rx4640 is interesting as it makes use of so-called "cell"-architecture, unlike the single-
"cell" "entry-level" systems (like the rx1600/rx1620, zx6000/rx2600/rx2620 and so forth), thus
a bit more like the 'big iron' Integrity systems (like the rx7620, rx8620 and the Superdome).
I believe the rx4640 can take two, which can be fitted with four single-core processors each
or two "mx2" dual-processor modules (as seen in the first Integrity Superdome systems).

Then there are also "memory expansion boards", I'm not sure how many DIMMs go on each of these,
but I vaguely recall it can take a maximum of 128 GB. (In the case of the "cell"/processor
boards, it seems maxed out, but the auction doesn't appear to mention too much on the 'memory
boards'. it might be worth to ask the seller about, before making an offer or buying.)

A friend of mine has one of these (with lesser specifications), he bought it a couple of
years ago, for     1300 at the time! He still hasn't gotten around to installing VMS yet, I
hope he will soon.

Your point about the limited amount of storage space is what surprises many people.
In a way it also makes a (tiny) bit of sense, especially as the bigger players usually
tend to boot off SAN and larger, centralized, disk systems anyway.

- MG