I'm running OpenIndiana on a Z820 for pretty much the reason you specified - good price-performance for an off lease system + upgrades via ebay. No real issues I can think of, though I'm using a fairly limited subset of the hardware -- all drives on the SAS controller, nVidia NVS 510 for the display, and both NICs. If I remember correctly audio was working last time I checked, but can't speak to the quality.
As a side note, Z840 heatsinks can be used on a Z820, and the extra heatpipes on the Z840 heatsink should improve cooling and acoustics. Sherman On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 6:54 PM Reginald Beardsley via illumos-discuss < [email protected]> wrote: > > > I'm a number cruncher. I've got several nVidia Quadro FX1700/1800 cards so > I'm not concerned about those. They are well supported. This would really > be more compute server than workstation. > > The appeal is having up to 512 GB of RAM and up to 20+ cores with a 10-20 > TB RAIDZ3 disk array for very serious number crunching on seriously large > datasets. > > I wouldn't expect issues, but I'd hate to drop $2k and have Linux rammed > down my throat. > > Reg > On Wednesday, March 3, 2021, 08:42:21 PM CST, Robert Mustacchi < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > On 3/3/21 6:33 PM, Reginald Beardsley via illumos-discuss wrote: > > > I'm contemplating buying a real beast as the off lease systems available > via ebay, etc are quite staggering for the hardware you get. > > > > They are Solaris 11 certified as well as Linux supported, but I don't > care for Linux and Larry wants far too much for Solaris 11. Which leaves > the device driver problem. I know people are running OI on Z800s, but I've > not heard anyone mention a Z820. > > > > Anyone have experience with one? > > > > One other question. memorystock.com offers 8 GB DIMMS for the Z400, > but HP only supports 4 GB DIMMS. Has anyone run 8 GB DIMMS in a Z400? > > The core platform based on the HP quickspecs should be reasonably well > supported. It will come down to the specifics of the particular > configuration (e.g. SATA vs. SAS, GPUs, other NICs, etc.). Of those > peripherals, I'd expect the most problems and complications with the GPU. > > Robert > > *illumos <https://illumos.topicbox.com/latest>* / illumos-discuss / see > discussions <https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss> + participants > <https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/members> + delivery options > <https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription> Permalink > <https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Ta1cb50c0d3415dc9-M16973ab148ce683e9175d204> ------------------------------------------ illumos: illumos-discuss Permalink: https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Ta1cb50c0d3415dc9-Macb0c3bab6f47947f7ec03f3 Delivery options: https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
