[rescue] pSeries 660 6H1 Questions (7026-6H1)

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007, Andrew Weiss wrote:

> Ouch... this is good to know.  I was under the impression that the
> machine was good to go all by itself and was thinking of replacing my
> B80 with one of those from the basement at work (retired systems).  I
> was all set to grab one Monday.  I was hoping to just run it and an
> SSA shelf.  So I'd need 8U (two boxes) to do that?

Yes, you need both halves.  Bear in mind that it's been two years since
I did any maintenance on one but, IIRC, the CEC doesn't have any
external I/O at all--its just the RS64 processor complex, memory cards,
service processor, and interface to the I/O drawer.  The I/O drawer has
all the PCI slots, console ports, etc.  I -think- the half with the
power button and operator's console is actually the primary I/O drawer.
My recollection of the CEC is that it's a completely nondescript box
with nothing other than an ID plate on the bezel, two power cables, and
two boa-cables out the back.

Another thing to bear in mind is that the RS64-IV processors aren't that
great at many applications, as they're targeted at "commercial
workloads"[0].  They're amazing beasts for database apps and low-end
"mainframe" tasks (EDI, merge/sort, etc.), a little pokey for
compute-intensive integer tasks, and amazingly slow for anything FP.

For anything that -isn't- Oracle or DB2, I'd almost bet the B80 is
faster.  The B80 is certainly faster per watt for general workloads.


[0] Hence originally showing up in the AS/400 systems.
-- 
Jonathan Patschke     )  "So far, 99% of illegal activity has been caused
Elgin, TX            (    by criminals."
USA                   )                                    --David Willis