[geeks] Are these servers that bad?

[Lionel Peterson]

That's a lot of cores (32) for 'only' 64 Megs of RAM - and I suspect
increasing the RAM any further (if even possible) gets insanely expensive
rather quickly.

Then there's the power issue and the noise issue - either of which will keep
it out of most uses.

As a box to spin up for fun, it's a great deal, but for any extended use a
more modern system could easily out-perform this box for less money once power
costs are added in.

It uses as much as 1.9KW, according to the documentation:

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19121-01/sf.x4600/819-4342-18/html/z40007eb1005069
.html

Also, consider licensing costs - depending on software licenses an 8 socket
system command a premium license. For example, were you to want to run Windows
Server on such a box with all sockets running would require purchasing 4x
windows licenses (standard or datacenter), and I can't imagine the costs for
licensing something like Oracle Database...

(Licensing costs are, IMHO, the reason a box like this shows up on the market
at what I'll call 'scrap plus' prices.)

Lionel

> On Jun 18, 2014, at 10:13 PM, Jonathan Katz <jon at jonworld.com> wrote:
>
> Trying to figure something out...
>
> I saw this on e-bay, and have seen similar deals over time..
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/171360350238
>
> That seems like a LOT of horsepower for a low price. I was long-gone
> from Sun by the time these came out, so I don't know about any quality
> issues or horror stories, but why so cheap for 16 cores and 64G of
> RAM? To me that should still command a premium even if it is older
> hardware. Shows what little I know about current hardware these days,
> anyway.
>
> I still have a dream of getting a Thumper (X4500 or X4550) and loading
> it with SSDs. You know, one of these, with 48 2.5" SATA slots?
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/291157702209
>
> Those have gone up in price, surprisingly. The last time I saw one it
> was like $500 or less.
>
> --
> -Jon
> Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN.
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