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New Machines From Sun 205

wfaulk writes: "Sun has just annouced their Netra X1. It's a 1U high server w/ 400MHz UltraSPARC processor, 128 MB RAM, and a 20GB IDE drive for under $1000."

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?

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New Machines From Sun

Comments Filter:
  • Seems like that acquisition [cobalt.com] of Cobalt Networks [cobalt.com] is bearing some fruit.
  • Clustering is a much better way to scale than SMP. Also, with clusters, you are better off with central shared storage than with having it on each one. There's no reason for your web servers to have good storage capabilities - its just a waste of money. Leave that to the NFS server.
  • It's the ++Y2K bug!!

    -antipop
  • The BEST 1U Linux boxes are the VA Linux servers. They really rock (actually, we use the 2U version, but I'm pretty sure the 1U is almost the same, just a little pricier). Anyway, VA Linux has the _best_ intel Linux hardware around. VERY well-tested, and VERY solid.
  • "solid firewall-1"

    Isn't that an oxymoron? Of all the firewall products I've ever had the, errr, pleasure to work on, Firewall-1 is the least advanced, most unpleasant. The ipfilter module for Solaris is just as functional and at least it's open-sourced.

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Cobolt isn't competing with this. This doesn't just "work" out of the box. You still need a Sysadmin to configure it and stuff.
  • 20G 5400 RPM, that white paper notes under "Power Management". Something tells me disk I/O rates aren't going to be stellar.
  • How does this computer compare to say, an AMD of comparable price (price, not MHz)? For which cases would it be better option than an AMD, and which will it be worse?
  • Looks like it won't be until March when they start offering the X1:

    (from Sun's site):

    Pricing and Availability

    Sun's Netra X1 thin server will be available starting March 6, 2001 through Sun and Sun's existing worldwide sales channels. The starting list price is $995 for a system configured with an UltraSPARC IIe 400MHz processor, 128MB memory (1GB max), 1-20GB hard drive (2 drives max), and Solaris 8 and LOM management software pre-installed.

    http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2001-01/sunf lash.20010117.4.html;$sessionid$EBXDBFYAAANTXAMTA1 FU45Q [sun.com]

  • Linux doesnt scale well past two processors, so with a massive 8 way sun box running linux, you lose a bit of preformance. However, on a uniprocessor box, Linux would function just as well as Solaris. Now depending on the situation you could make a very good case for linux(perhaps a standard operating system, custom app, or staff knowledge) or one for solaris(binary compatibility with big suns, ease of maintence(jumpstart), corporate prebuilt packages). For a single processor box, its not that one clearly leads the other.

    However, for a multiprocessor box, yes anyone running linux on it is insane. Im intrested in what makes you prefer solaris(symantics, os feature, preformance, or ...). I've used and admined a bunch of sun boxes, and I always find them sorta different, with some nice features(serial consoles!) and some bad ones(the stock vi). Why do you prefer it?

    /*
    *Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
    */
  • by Malc ( 1751 )
    I've used a Dell server. I have some queries that run for several hours. It seems that we either GBs of memory, or disk sub-system that is faster than the current SCSI RAID. Why would I want to go for expensive Sun equipment when I seem to get better value with x86 hardware? Besides, we'd have to take quite a hit moving everything from SQL Server to a non-MSFT DB solution.
  • Not true. Anyone can get it. I have it right
    here. You can order a set of CDs, or download
    it from the web site.

  • by Zapman ( 2662 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @05:55PM (#500101)
    As a Sun Sysadmin, I see only 2 problems that keep this box from UTTERLY blowing away the competition.
    1) The drives are non SCSI, so in sun land, you can't mirror the hard drives [1]
    2) (Follows from 1) The drives don't hot swap.

    Sun has long lagged behind Compaq (the intel servers I see most at my work) and probably others in shipping with RAID chips that can cover the 2-5 hot swap, SCSI drives that can go in the chassie. Now I understand charging serious cash for external storage, but for the root drives, lay off.

    [1] Note: if there is a way around this, I would LOVE to hear it, but every where I've seen, unless you have 2 different IDE busses, you can't mirror root drives.
  • Yeah, and then run a beowulf cluster on them ;-))...

    sue me, now I did it too ;-)

  • by /Caspian/ ( 137844 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @05:57PM (#500103) Homepage
    Check these 1U Linux boxes out: www.interpromicro.com [interpromicro.com]
    We have bought several of these for production use, and so far they are very nice. Starting at just $859.00 they are cheap, small, and all round just pretty nifty.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    For eight or fewer processors, Solaris is free. The media kit is $75. One media kit per licensee, not per license. Install it onto as many systems as you want. Just register them at no charge.

    Windows is expensive. Solaris isn't.
  • Doesn't bode well for a server introduction, does it?
  • If you are paying $16K a pop for a Netra T1 105, you are on crack. A T1 with a 360/1MB cache and 128MB is ~$3200. Make it a 440/2MB and the price climbs all the way up to ~$5200. Single discs, no cdrom.
    The RAM _is_ silly expensive, but even maxed out with two drives and 512MB, we still get them for less than $7000.

  • I can see more than two problems with this box unfortunately. Sure it looks great but it lacks alot. Memory expandibility, only two network ports, no SMP support, no SCSI, certainly no fibre, no gigabit ethernet. Perhaps they are cheap enough to buy and throw away but if I were building a web-farm, I'd have to think twice about putting these in.
  • We ordered a Sun Blade when it came out, back in November. We still haven't seen it yet. Sun keeps claiming that it will ship Real Soon Now(tm).

    We have one in our firm - 2X750MHz, 2GB RAM, 2X36GB 10k RPM FCAL disks, two Sun 17 inch (I think) flat panels - but we do buy quite a bit of Sun kit. The faceplate lights up, which is sort of cool. A guy who looks after some of our Starfires has it under his desk, and I went on a pilgrimage to his desk to see it back in mid-December.

  • well, i know it is not free (as in GNU) but i thought that sun was planning some weird quasi-open program in which the solaris source would be made available under a highly restrictive liscence. maybe they axed it; i don't know.
  • Wrong. I worked for Sun during the summer of '87 and from Jul '90 to Oct '91, but I left the company because Slowlaris sucked so bad, and it was humiliating to work for a company that asked me to lie to its customers, when all the customers could see through the lies (except you, appearently).

    -Don

  • No, it won't have the same problem. The cpus that cause the problems are 400MHz/4MB E-cache and the 440MHz/8MB E-cache. (Other may be affected such as the 480s, but I am not sure.)

    Those cpus have problems because the cache is, apparently, not ECC. Sun's 'fix' is to clear the cache every Nns. Not really a fix, but at least the box doesn't fall over.

    Looking at the specs for the new X1s, the cache has been reduced to 256KB, and although it isn't stated, the cache is likely on the die.
  • Keep in mind that the Sparcs are RISC as opposed to CISC.
  • Its great for a cluster server or a single-service server (DNS/SQUID/firewall/load-balancer)
  • I don't know if Solaris has this, but with Linux you can just do a network install. You don't even need a floppy, you can just tftp the kernel image.
  • Perhaps your tone is slathered with sarcasm, but...

    It's 1U - that makes a pretty huge difference. And it's designed to run forever, like months without heat problems. At 1U (1.5") that's serious work.

    And 400MHz in an UntraSparc is something completely different than 400MHz in a Celeron. IPC (instructions per clock cycle) is significantly better.

  • Well, it's not conclusive, but the "Identifying Components" diagram on p 87 of the User Guide [sun.com] shows separate cables for HDD0 and HDD1. Might mean they've got separate buses...
  • i just have 2 questions: how much? and give it to me. where can i buy? where where where? i want to buy one this second yet it does not look like they are available yet. when when when?
  • Would they make any major changes in this new box that would make the Sparc port incompatible?

    I'd like to find a Sparc port that would run on my old Solbourne s3000 Sparc workstation, alas that box is definately non-compatible.

  • http://www.ultralinux.org/ for starters, but you can bag it from SuSE: http://www.suse.com
  • The design conceptuality is the biggest factor here... SPARC processors are built with a common, strict instruction set, and all performance enhancements are done at the hardware level (anything that is beyond the user-definable assembly-like language). Intel adds extensions to each new processor they come out with. Comparing apples to apples doesn't exactly work, when it comes to FPU/ALU/FLOPS/etc... here's why.

    Take a Pentium Pro 200 and benchmark it on the exact same software with a PIII-1ghz. Theoretically, there should be a five-fold scaling difference in performance. However, applications that have not had additional optimization code added in for the newer PIII architecture do NOT get a five-fold increase in performance. Expect to see something along the lines of three-fold.

    Applications that _have_ been optimized for the newer architecture will blow away the old chips. For example, look at Quake III on a Pentium Pro 200 with a PCI Video card, and then try the same benchmarks with all the same variables with a PIII-1ghz. the difference is more like 20-25fold than it is five-fold.

    Either way, it's a lose-lose situation for Intel. If you buy a fast, expensive server, it won't be scalably faster than your old server when using the same software. Also, in another year, when SSE3 and MMX revision 234023 come out on Intel's next chip (or at least, next microcode release), your now-old server won't be optimized for the code in new software and will run it poorly.

    With Sun's SPARC architecture, this stuff doesn't happen. Of course, it did from SPARC to UltraSPARC, but that's a HUGE architectural change - that's expected. Just like going from a PIII to an IA64-based chip, when they come out. Bottom line is that you're playing guessing games and software-matching-tag to figure out if an Intel-based server upgrade will really help you, where in the Sun market, your upgrade will be matched equally and as-expected with greater performance.

    If you really *like* tweaking and modifying and optimizing software at the instruction-level on your servers, hey, I won't stop you... I know that I've got way too many servers to manage to possibly consider that as a reasonable option in the enterprise.
  • Seems odd that the product lines have crossed. $1000 for a Sparc server and $4800 for a Cobalt? If someone tried to pull that one on me a year ago I would have laughed in their faces.
    ------
    WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
  • I have 2 DL360's and 2 DS10L's from Compaq on my desk right now. They are a bit loud, but they work just fine ;-)
  • Who would ever buy one of those pieces of crap from Sun? Doesn't everybody know that administering Slowlaris is The Worst Job in the World [catalog.com]??!

    If you're really so autointoxicated that you'd consider buying Sun equipment, it would be much more cost effective in the long run to get a PinkBoard [pinkboard.co.uk] instead.

    "You will be surprised at what comes out of you."

    -Don

  • I'm no expert, so feel free to flame away, but I would imagine that this is not aimed at being a bullet-proof, hot-swap drive, redundant power-supply dual processing bad-boy - at this price the whole box would probably get swapped out if there was a problem. Use them as web or application servers, and keep your database on something a little more chunky.
  • by E-Lad ( 1262 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @03:51PM (#500125)
    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.
  • For accessing a single disk, IDE is usually just as fast as SCSI.
  • Bull.

    I ordered 2 Ultra 5's Friday (1-12-01) and recived them yesterday. (1-17-01) And they weren't even stock orders. (just extra RAM)

  • The question I have is who is going to use a machine with an IDE drive an only 128 megs of RAM in a production environment? Normal users probably won't use it since it's only rack-mountable, and it's pretty low end to be a business server.

    Many n-tier system architectures use machines that are almost pure CPUs connected to networks. The machine would receive a request from a client application on the tier "above", make it's own requests for data from servers on the tier "below", perform some processing and then send a reply upwards and logging information down. You only really need a disk in these things for convenience sake, if they've been properly configured they won't even need to hit the pagefile during normal operation. You'd have real servers for your data storage, and you would be able to hot swap and/or add entire nodes to the system whenever you felt like it, because as long as they complete whatever they're working on before you disconnect them, they have no state on them at all. Very scalable, very easy to maintain, and quite cheap.

  • by djrogers ( 153854 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @11:50PM (#500129)
    Sure it'd make a cheap singe server, but at that price the whole damn thing is practically disposable. Stuff a rack with them, hook 'em up to a SAN, or an NFS mounted data repository (to eliminate the need to replicate data) and front the whole thing with a nice load balancer (or 2 boxes running the Linux Director stuff). Voila - you've got a $50k rack with enough SSL encrypting, HTML pushing, PERL punching, and bandwidth blasting power to rival ANY $150k piece of 'big iron'.
  • This is just a pity to see they preferred to put an IDE disc in this box.
    OK, for monothreading apps, IDE is okay and can even be fast enough but it relies in some way on the processor's power.
    Why not putting some SCSI disc(s) inside, hmmmm ?
    BTW, I love the idea of a service processor in this low-cost device: this will save much space in my machine rooms.
    --
  • ...what's the point of getting a Sun box to run Linux?

    Is SPARC *that* special?
  • ....I have found (at least in .au) is the Intel 1100 series. This is actually a 1RU case + motherboard + 2xIntel Pro 100 NIC's. Add your own HD/RAM/CPU/OS. You can also add a video card or CDROM if you need to, but these things are designed for headless deployment (Ghost/PXE/etc) and they have a serial port on the front so you can plug in a vt100 console if you want to see the bios or text mode/dos stuff. I have built some linux servers, PIII plus 128MB ram plus 9GB IDE drive came to about $2300 AUD so I would guess given exchange rates etc would be around $1K US.
  • In all fairness, some places on Sun's website either say it has a "64-bit UltraSPARC" (vague) or an UltraSPARC-IIi (wrong!), both of which would lead to a conclusion of it working. The other thing is that unless you closely inspect the photo, you wouldn't notice the ALi chip. Honestly, if I didn't know better I would draw the same conclusion as you.

    Either way, thanks for pointing out the Ultralinux website earlier... there is no better SPARC/Linux resource out there.

  • Actually, no... this has nothing to do with Cobalt. Sun had similar machines to this before the Cobalt acquisition... this is just a continuation of that product line.
  • They're a good price/spec for web servers load balanced by something like Cisco LocalDirector. I'm setting this up right now with Netra T1's, though each of the Netra's will only use the local disk for the OS, Apps and Logging. All the HTTP content will be NFS mounted by an E-4500 + Photon disk array.
  • I'll bet Sun's compiler still costs $1995. I guess there's always gcc.
  • Seems silly for Sun to buy out Cobolt when they are just going to slam them with a cheaper unit. These things look great, get about 40 or so in a rack, $1000 a piece, rent them out as 'vitural' servers this would more then power most internet sites or multiple sites, hell we had about 6 different sites on one P133 for the longest time, it's usually a bandwidth problem rather then cpu/hardware unless you are slashdot, or some big site. Look at the stats for 99% of the sites out there and they get less then 300 hits (really hits) a day... exceptions are large media, freeware, porn and warez sites.

    The average place won't see anywhere near that sort of traffic.

    wonder if there is any clustering software for these things, or run linux on it.. you could build a pretty sweet cluster for $40 grand.

    lastly.. these are worth the price.. hell, a 1U case alone goes for like $400.. what's up with that??

    -b

  • Just to clear it up, the [42]20R's are not Netras, they are Enterprise servers: E420R, E220R.

    I can actually see these very handy for DNS servers, and large arrays of web servers (at this price you can buy 3 of these to take the place of 1 slightly bigger/better machine, and have more points of failure)
  • From http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hw/network ing/netrax/X1/marketpaper.html [sun.com]
    With a starting price of $995, the Netra X1 server is extremely competitive when compared with other entry-level servers. It is an especially attractive proposition given the fact that the server comes complete with the Solaris Operating Environment and disk drive preinstalled along with remote management capabilities, making it ready for out-of-the-box use.

    ------
    WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
  • We ordered a Sun Blade when it came out, back in November. We still haven't seen it yet. Sun keeps claiming that it will ship Real Soon Now(tm).
    It seems to me Sun is trying awfully hard to become the next Micro$oft. Their marketing department is a close second to Micro$oft's when it comes to making tall claims and vaporware.
  • That's a little misleading. While you don't save all that much space between the E250 and the E220R, you *do* with the E420R vs. the E450. The E450 is nice with all those internal drive bays, but it's fscking huge.
  • Air flow issues? On a desk the bottom surface would not get any airflow, and heat can be a serious issue for 1U boxes.

    That, and as an AC said below, video/frame buffer could be a drawback for some.

  • Can't say what the best 1U machines are. I bought a 2U Dell server last year. They sent out advertising that had an "actual size" photo of the faceplate. It was pretty cool. Then I got the box, and the damned thing is too deep to fit in any racks that I have. (Close to 3 feet deep.)

    1U Cobalts are nice, because they can fit in any cheap 19" rack that a musician may have lying around. 2U Dell or Compaq servers weigh a ton and really need rear rails (and no standard depth in the industry, it seems) to hold them.

    Ack.
    ------
    WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??

  • Solaris 8 is free (beer) for up to and including 8 CPUs though they charge $75 for the media package (several CDROMs)..

    $75 is cheap. There's a catch though...the licence doesn't include upgrades. So, if an exploit or other defect is discovered and fixed, you need to;

    1. Get a Sun support contract to enable access to the upgrades.
    2. Get another set of CDs (when available).
    3. Stop using that version of Solaris without either disconnecting it to the net or being really careful how it is used.

    If there's a way to get updates that I don't know about, feel free to hit me with a Clue Stick(tm).

  • Does I don't think it has a graphics card, and that is why an ANSI terminal is required. What sun should do is have an X-server run on startup, so that you can login using X from a PC, or another Sun Box.

  • You are talking about a Nextra T1, this discussion is about the Nextra X1. Hence the cost difference.
  • You don't, do you? If you actually delt with servers on a regular basis, you'd understand the coolness of getting a SUN for under a grand. That's cheaper than the Cobalt RaQ4's and Qubes. Which run on AMD K6-2's. Guess what, this will stomp a hole in the cobalts w/o a problem. and it's cheaper. So no, I take it you don't get it, do you?
  • I totally agree. Firewall-1 is a joke. Does it make any sense to run a firewall in user space? I don't think so. Besides that, you need to have X installed to use it... Give me OpenBSD anyday...

    dopp

  • The company I work for currently puts an Ultra 5 in each office for DHCP & secondary DNS. We'll be looking hard at these as a way to save cash as we expand.
  • As explained in an earlier post....
    Some of the chipsets used have not been implemented
    in the kernel code for that specific architecture yet.
    It's being worked on by an Admiral group of folks.

    Sun would probably install Linux on it for you...
    IF
    1) They were interested in linux.
    2) They completed the port to this hardware
    3) They can train their support staff to
    handle the sudden increase in tech
    support calls.

    Not that I mind, since I'm one of those who's
    still waiting for 2 other things.....
    1) Completed port to the new chipsets
    2) 1K to get one of my own.
  • $75 is cheap. There's a catch though...the licence doesn't include upgrades. So, if an exploit or other defect is discovered and fixed, you need to...

    *whack* You are correct that it doesn't include upgrades. However, the Recommended Cluster Patches, which include include security and reliability patches, are free. Check http://sunsolve.sun.com [sun.com] and look for 'patches'.
  • Not really *that* special :) but it is pretty sweet hardware.
  • You may want to dig a little deeper before you start throwing dirt around. A few comments & corrections:

    ... No video...
    And why, pray tell, would you want to waste space on a video board in something that is meant to be crammed into a single rack with 10 other thin servers like it? This isn't a desktop system -- it's supposed to be something you throw a rack & forget about where it is physically.

    ... buy lot's more uberexpensive Sun RAM ...
    From the article: "... it employs standard PC components, including PC memory and IDE disk drives...." I assume that means it takes standard RAM.

    ... single NIC ...
    Close -- it has a single network card. But, that built-in card is dual ported, each port having 10/100 capability.

    --Mid

  • or DHCP servers or routers. They are nice and small and at these prices, you can use individual boxes dedicated to each of these functions and have replacement boxes ready to go.
  • *whack* You are correct that it doesn't include upgrades. However, the Recommended Cluster Patches, which include include security and reliability patches, are free. Check http://sunsolve.sun.com and look for 'patches'.

    *OUCH!* Thanks...I think!

    Sun should make it easy to find these kind of things. Only a few sites are harder to deal with, and almost all of them high-profile.

    [GRIPE] Why hide every patch and upgrade under a layer of menus that use phrases from a marketing handbook, as opposed to...well...an FTP site? What's so hard about that old favorite, plus a simple directory structure?

  • The Register is reporting [theregister.co.uk] that the UK list price for the X1 is going to be £1200 - almost double the straight currency conversion of £679 (US$1000 == GBP£679 at the moment, according to this site [xe.net].

    WTF is that all about then?

    I noted that Apple UK's pricing of the Titanium Powerbook is only marginally above the straight conversion, which sounds fair to me. But almost double?

    ...j
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Keep in mind that this dont mean anything. Intel chips outperform SPARCS mhz for mhz in all the important benchmarks.
  • by crovira ( 10242 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:17PM (#500195) Homepage
    As a Mac user (multiple) smarting from the stupid MHz comments in the press, I'm surprised that they didn't put a 2GHz clock on the bastard (and step it down 5:1 at the chip, which would give them an ultra-precise 400 MHz clock.)

    I'd have some real decisions to make if I hadn't already budgeted for a Titanium PowerBook.

    But the next rack unit I buy...
  • by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:20PM (#500200)
    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)

  • Seriously... There are a lot of small development companies out there, especially those building ASP/Netapps, who don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to lay out on Sparc boxes for their QA and development work.

    I wonder what these are going to do to the countless leasing companies that are reaming small shops for a good $14-16k (low-end) Ultra2 boxes...
  • ...where the hell is the X1 on the Sun online store? Or am I gonna have to bid for one of these things against dozens of other rabid "must have now!" geeks? (I'd like to replace my Sparc 5/170 with something made this century...)

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • Simple.

    You have a jumpstart server around to jumpstart it. But of course you shouldn't need this, because the install does *not* require a GUI. If it detects no framebuffer it defaults to the text only install option, throughout.
  • I'm with ya there. I had to reread their page a few times before I let myself believe. I was waiting to see *disk/cpu not included or something.

    Well it is "FrameBuffer, Audio, SCSI" not included. Not that FrameBuffer has any value for a rackmount server, Audio has almost none, and SCSI, well, that would be nice, but I guess they have to cut the cost some how. NEBS would be nice as well, but again...

    The drawback is no PCI slot. So there are a lot of things you can't use it for. Beyond memory and disk space there is basically no expansion at all. No gigabit ethernet. No RAID. None of that. A pity. But there are other Netras.

    I hope BSD/OS runs on it :-)

  • Using DiskSuite, you can mirror drives (including boot/root/swap). The GUI will complain that you have all of your state database replicas on only two disks and that everything is on the same controller, but you can simply ignore the warning.

    I currently do this with a bunch of T1's where you have both of the internal disks on the same controller (and only 2 disks).

    I also just used the command line to do the work. Check out Sun's Guide to high availability where they provide the step by step instructions for both DiskSuite (free) and Veritas (overpriced unless you have an array)

  • Does anyone have a "Thousand dollar review" for this thing yet - or do we have to wait for Chris Chabot/redir to rip something off?
  • Misleading? I was comparing size. The E220/420 use the same chassis. That chassis IS smaller than both the 250 (by 2U) and the 450 (by alot).

    Even so, the 450 is still a waste of space. A 420R configured with 2 external D1000 units takes up less verticle space and affords you more hard drive slots than the 450, and can carry the same amount of CPUs and RAM. One might argue that this kind of set up is more redundant in some ways.

  • Sun has been selling new Sun Ultra 5s 10s and higher off of E-Bay sience Augest. YOu can get a Ultra 5 for around $2000 and a Ultra 10 for around $3000 It is still a little more expensive then a x86 but runing and Ultra Sparc is a nice experence.
  • by WasterDave ( 20047 ) <davep@@@zedkep...com> on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:31PM (#500229)
    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 :)
  • Solaris 8 is free (beer) for up to and including 8 CPUs though they charge $75 for the media package (several CDROMs)..

    (check here [sun.com] for details)


    Your Working Boy,
  • Sun machines on the other hand don't excute each thread all that fast in comparison, but my God! Have you seen that sucker when you ramp up the number of processes/threads?!

    Yes, I have. They still fall behind. On the other hand the hardware almost never fails, is a lot simpler to "fix" remotly (tell it to boot off of another drive, or boot of of CD and reload the OS, or just power down and back up). They are also much simpler to get in the same config for more then 3 months in a row.

    Even real fixing is frequently simpler. SCA drives are wonderful (and yes, you can get SCA PCs, but once you configure a SCA PC the price tends to go above Suns!)

    That is why we use them for servers a lot. A lot lot. A very very lot. Even with the CPU gap.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • someone can confirm that the Sparc port of Linux will run on this, I will be getting out my credit cards. This looks really sweet.
  • 1) The drives are non SCSI, so in sun land, you can't mirror the hard drives [1]
    ...
    [1] Note: if there is a way around this, I would LOVE to hear it, but every where I've seen, unless you have 2 different IDE busses, you can't mirror root drives

    I don't mean to start a flame war, but several distributions of linux run on sparc, including my favorite, debian. Linux includes software raid that works quite happily over IDE. In fact, I've installed debian on a sparc and used software raid. It worked great. (The only reason that I did it is that I had to put together a demonstration very quickly, and apt is a ton easier than downloading and compiling everything by hand.)

    That being said, running any sort of raid on a single IDE bus is a really bad idea, you will absolutely kill your performance because of the limitations of the bus. But it will work.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @08:57PM (#500245)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @03:00PM (#500246) Homepage Journal
    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?

    Why not actually use the X1 as a skateboard deck? put a few little wheels on it and Whamo! Instant Geek/Board culture cross. I could see these things really catching on at lunch hour in the industrial parks. Then you could really start making sparks with that sparc.

  • You might want to read the story again; the Sun X1 holds 2 drives, and the Cobalt RaQ XTR holds 4 drives.
  • by uzi ( 30210 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:40PM (#500249) Homepage
    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 [sun.com], 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. :)
  • by durdur ( 252098 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @04:43PM (#500251)
    http://www.xcomputing.com - has a variety of 1U Intel machines, great prices, very fast delivery. I have a couple in my basement. http://www.aslab.com also looks like they have nice stuff but I haven't bought any from them (yet).
  • Terminal
    - or -
    Linux+Minicom+Rollover cable
    - or -
    Terminal Server (Computone, Cisco, Lightwave Comm)...

    They all work fine with Netras... the T1 models have LOM, which is nice if the boxes are remote, because you can telnet to your terminal server on the correct port for the serial console (Netra serial port A) and type "poweron" to power them up, then get a console Login or OpenBoot.

    The T1 105s are good boxes; just slightly lesser than the T1 AC200 (same box with 440 MHz cpu and only up to a gb of RAM). Get them before they are gone; that might be a very good deal. They are not a bad box to run Linux on either...

    Sean
  • The thing about Sun equipment is that, yeah, it's overpriced. But it offers something that not a lot of other vendors can offer in terms of hardware quality. The parts used by Sun are generally of very high quality (and I'm talking the stupid, but important stuff, like cables, power supplies, and PCBs). Sun hardware, while never being a shining star in the CPU department, makes up for it in I/O throughput, if those type of apps are your deal (though CPU intensive stuff is best left to CPUs like IA32/Alpha).

    The Netra T1 boxes (at least the 105s, and I assume the 220s) run Linux, have lights-out managment of power via dial-in or terminal server, and come standard with 10kRPM disks, and have dual ethernet, and have plenty of expansion (via the E1 box for 4 extra PCI cards, if you need it).

    Overall, the netras might be overpriced, but they are a good choice for folks that have the money (and the people) to use them in the right situation.
  • I shoulda known someone much better than I'll ever be would read that, and post.

    Thanks for the correction. I don't want to mislead people. Guess I shoulda checked the hardware compatibility list for the components, and not just the CPU.

    mea culpa.
  • To put some figures on this:

    220/420
    17.8 cm H
    44.9 cm W
    69.6 cm D
    250
    51.7 cm H
    26.2 cm W
    73.2 cm D
    450
    58.1 cm H
    44.8 cm W
    69.6 cm D

  • by n3rd ( 111397 ) on Wednesday January 17, 2001 @03:04PM (#500291)
    I work at a company who uses lots of the Netra machines, and they're awesome. The Netra 220R is the same as an Ultra Enterprise 250 only rackmountable and the Netra 420R is the same as a Ultra Enterprise 450 only again, it's rack mountable.

    The question I have is who is going to use a machine with an IDE drive an only 128 megs of RAM in a production environment? Normal users probably won't use it since it's only rack-mountable, and it's pretty low end to be a business server.

    Thoughts?
  • There are several reasons. The two main ones I can think of off the top of my head are:

    1) You could have a mostly Linux shop, and want the price/performance of a Sun machine without having to learn brand-new stuff

    2) You prefer the Linux tools (IPChains et al)

    In addition, you should care about license philosophy (no matter which side of the fence you are on). The moral/philosophical choices we make today affect our future, so you should at least decide where you stand on the issue and act accordingly.
  • SO what are the best 1U options for UNIX/Linux apps?

    We're building a suite of app servers in my (job) and have started looking into HP's new LPr's rumored to come out (dual PIII in 1U). Sun has made 1U machines for a while, but they've been expensive.

    And sometimes I wonder if an 8-CPU 4U box may be a better deal over 4 1U boxes.... Still, having a rack stacked full on 1U machenes, some acting as firewalls, some as web servers, some as app servers, some as DB servers, etc... It's kind of sweet.

Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol

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