Power On Self Test (afternoon edition): The Sun Also Rises

Think you're into computers? This is Dean of Pittsburgh. Do you have a 12GB Solaris 10 "Beastserver" rack the size of a refrigerator in the middle of your living room?

Well, do you?

Mustard Hamsters

[#1 posted by zuzu , November 3, 2008 1:06 PM]

pfft... I live in a Sun Black Box shipping container! Nice try though. ;)

[#2 posted by scherbis , November 3, 2008 1:17 PM]

Why would you want to? That server is probably 10 years old by now and you're lucky if it has 400 mhz processors. You'd be lucky to be able to afford the power for it, if you can stand the noise. You can use it to heat the house in the winter though.

A modern PC running Solaris 9 or 10 makes more sense.

[#3 posted by woolie , November 3, 2008 1:23 PM]

I don't have any Sun equipment, but I have a variety of vintage SGI machines in my office... O2, Octane, Indigo, Indy, and a deskside Onyx2.

[#4 posted by jakze , November 3, 2008 1:23 PM]

YES. As long as you have absolutely no followup questions, yes, yes I do.

[#5 posted by Joel Johnson , November 3, 2008 1:28 PM]

Well hello. And hello to you, too, Dean.

[#6 posted by guy_jin , November 3, 2008 1:56 PM]

WHY?!

[#7 posted by Dean , November 3, 2008 2:36 PM]

For clarification:

The server runs Solaris 10. With all of its system boards in, it has 12 GB of RAM, and a dozen 400 Mhz processors. Right now one board is out.

The server also has two RAID cabinets: an A1000 and a Multipack 711. This gives the server about 250 GB of storage. There's also a tape robot and several large boxes of spare hard drives and tapes.

Obviously this isn't anything comparable to today's servers. I bought this because a friend offered it to me for $500 for the entire set, including the rack. I'm still in college, so this is all I can afford, and the Internet access and electricity bills are paid for by my tuition. This will be moving out of my living room and into a dedicated server room for my department on Wednesday. It does heat my house.

Its name is Mingus. He was physically the largest jazz musician I could think of. You can access Mingus at http://mingus.res.cmu.edu but it's just running a test page right now. Understand that there will be downtime for the next few days as I am still working on the computer.

[#8 posted by technogeek , November 3, 2008 2:41 PM]

Well, my brother owned a Vax for some years... Sometimes the question isn't whether it's efficient, but whether it works for you as a piece of functioning absurdist art. That's why I've held onto my second PC, which was an IBM Luggable with an Expansion Unit used as an oversized docking station... even though these days most microcontrollers are more powerful.

"The impressive thing is not how well the bear dances, but that it dances at all."

[#9 posted by Rob Beschizza , November 3, 2008 2:42 PM]

"WHY?!"

BECAUSE IT IS THERE.

[#10 posted by SamSam , November 3, 2008 5:13 PM]

No, but I DO own that t-shirt...

[#11 posted by Elvis Pelt , November 3, 2008 5:57 PM]

No, but I DO have a Cromenco in the attic...

[#12 posted by icky2000 , November 3, 2008 10:37 PM]

Neat. Awful big for what it is - reminds me of the good old days. The first servers I managed were HP LH Pro's which fit only 4 to a full size rack. We thought they were great. Today it is common to see 42 1U boxes in a rack. Our standard config these days is a pair of blade enclosures, 20 blade servers total, in a rack that is half empty because no data center in the country has the cooling and power infrastructure to handle more than 2 blade enclosures per rack. Each of the 20 runs with 32GB of RAM, quad CPU, hosts 8 virtual servers = 160 servers per rack. Things have changed a bit. Big iron is still sweet though!

[#13 posted by Not a Doktor , November 4, 2008 12:48 AM]

So let's say I come across an office sale and buy something like this for cheap, what could I do with it?

[#14 posted by Anonymous , November 4, 2008 2:10 AM]

No; but I DO have an IBM AS/400.
Do I get extra points for having the coolest, most grown-up, joined-up operating system (albeit with the crappiest U.I.) ever?

[#15 posted by rancor01 , November 4, 2008 3:54 AM]

#13 - Show the world your My Little Pony collection.