[geeks] New Intel Atom-based barebones system

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>Date: 2008/08/16 Sat PM 01:34:58 EDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] New Intel Atom-based barebones system

>On Aug 16, 2008, at 11:11 , wa2egp at att.net wrote:
>
>> I don't think so.  My Ultra 80 draws about 120 watts on the average  
>> which is far lower than figures presented.  Mine is measured not  
>> gleaned from the numbers on the power supply label.
>
>The power suckage on the Ultra CPUs was pretty high too.  My Sun  
>equipment used a lot more power than my PC systems, except for the  
>really low end stuff.
>
>When I got rid of my Sun equipment, my computing power went way up,  
>and my power usage went way down, plus the room is a whole lot cooler.
>
>I loved those old machines, but their CPU power to electrical power  
>ratio sucked.

The blessing that put these machines within our reach initially, is the reason many of us have moved on from them - as a hooby we endured power/MIPS ratios too lop-sided for any responsible business to sustain.

I'm in the process of starting to shed significant quantity of older kit, certain in the realization that the bulk of my treasures hold minimal premium over their weight in scrap metals. I must admit, in hindsight, I was more of an accumulator than a collector - what I lacked in quality, I attempted to make up for in quantity.

Like others here (I suspect), I find myself spending more time with/on virtual systems instead of wrestling with "mature" hardware quirks and idiosyncrocies. As I look down the line, I must admit I like the idea of having a small number of systems in a rack with a couple compute boxes and a large storage array to serve up storage space to the various virtual machines...

Lionel