On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Richard Elling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Tim wrote: >> So, I see Sun finally updated the Thumper, and it appears they're now >> using a PCI-E backplane. Anyone happen to know what the chipset is? >> Any chance we'll see an 8-port PCI-E SATA card finally?? > > One NVidia MCP-55 and two NVidia IO-55s replace the thumper's > AMD-8132 HT to PCI-X bridges. The new configuration is such > that the expandable PCI-E slots have their own IO-55. The > MCP-55 and one IO-55 connect to 3 LSI 1068E and provide > 2x GbE each. This should be a better balance than the thumper's > configuration. > > LSI 1068E SAS/SATA controllers replace thumper's Marvell > SAS/SATA controllers. You might recognize the LSI 1068, > and its smaller cousin, the 1064, as being used in many other > Sun servers from the T1000 to the M9000. > > 8-port PCI-E SAS/SATA card is supported for additional > expansion, such as a J4500 (the JBOD-only version) > http://www.sun.com/storagetek/storage_networking/hba/sas/specs.xml > > The best news, for many folks, is that you can boot from an > (externally pluggable) CF card, so that you don't have to burn > two disks for the OS. > > I think we have solved many of the deficiencies noted in the > thumper, including more CPU and memory capacity. Please > let us know what you think :-)
Not that I'm in the market for one - but I think a version with (possibly fewer) 15k RPM SAS disks would be a best seller - especially for applications that require more IOPS. Like RDBMS for example. And yes, I realize that one could install a SAS card into the 4540 and attach it to one of the SAS based J4nnn boxes - but that's not the same physical density that a 4540 with SAS disks would offer. Or even a mixture of SATA and SAS drives.... And it would be great if Sun would OEM the Micro Memory (aka vmetro) cards. Obviously its only a question of time before Sun will bring its own RAM/flash cards to the market - but an OEM deal would make product available now and probably won't compete with what Sun has in mind (based entirely on my own crystal ball gazing). We all know how big a win this is for NFS shares! Congrats to Sun, Team ZFS and open storage. The new x45xx and J4xxx boxes are *great* additions to Suns product line. > -- richard > > >> >> "The new Sun Fire X4540 server uses PCI Express IO technology for more >> than triple the system IO-to-network bandwidth." >> >> http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4540/ >> >> --Tim Regards, -- Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc,Plano,TX [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: 972.379.2133 Timezone: US CDT OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Apr 2005 to Mar 2007 http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/ogb_2005-2007/ _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
