On Mon, 11 Feb 2008, David Clack wrote:
> Hi,
>
> So I checked with have sata on the MB just not the headers.
>
> I took about six weeks to create this motherboard.
>
> Give me your requirements for the system and I'll see what we can
> build.
>
> BTW no sound chip on this system.
Hi David,
I have to give you credit for creating a new product category for
Sun. Even if the Rev 1.x does not satisfy every need - its a very
welcome first step and fills a void within the (Open)Solaris hardware
ecosystem that, up to now, has not been addressed.
I particularly like that you've leveraged commodity x86 hardware. The
kind of compute "horse-power" that is available from this system has
not been available from Sun - except via overpriced and cache-crippled
UltraSPARC xxi ("i" series) processors. Only the really hard-core,
die-hard SPARC zealots are going to purchase a "one Operating System"
box based on the SPARC architecture. Anyone else, with some common
sense, will go the x86 route and keep their options open to run any OS
(including some less popular real-time systems) - especially any of
the Linux based variants that are small footprint and low overhead.
I understand (now) that you've targeted SSDs rather than conventional
hard disks. While that is a worthy long-term goal, today the
price/capacity/performance for SSD is prohibitively expensive and this
may not change until year end (or possibly 2009). In the meantime,
this low-power platform, with a high capacity SATA or SAS disk, could
form a node in a distributed storage system - where the ultimate
performance from an individual node is not so important (because its
likely to be (net) bandwidth limited) - but capacity and I/O Ops/Sec
(IOPS) are important. The ultimate/ideal system would accomodate
either a SAS or SATA disk drive(s). This allows the user to decide if
this "node" is a low-traffic (low IOPS) storage server where storage
capicity trumps all or if this is a high transaction (high IOPS) type
storage node where the ability to produce I/O based on many
(concurrent) requests is more important.
I have to give you ultimate kudos for going to the OpenSolaris lists
with the prototype - rather than the usual Sun behavior: "here it is;
you did'nt know it was coming and you did'nt get a vote on what it is
or how its configured"; "maybe it'll work for you".
Perhaps there is room for 2 or 3 models based on the same underlying
technology. One optimized for low storage with an SSD (DNS server,
mailserver, commodity webserver) and one optimized for more storage
capacity (2 high capacity SATA drives) and a 3rd model that comes with
an integrated SAS controller which would allow use of SATA or SAS disk
drives where SAS == high IOPS.
I believe that your overall concept is very sound - low power, small
footprint, OpenSolaris compatible, backed by Sun.
What a *welcome* change this makes from previous Sun behavior.
Keep up the Good Work! :)
Regards,
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 Timezone: US CDT
OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Apr 2005 to Mar 2007
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/ogb_2005-2007/
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