>>> Talking to oneself is generally the first sign of insanity.
>>
>> ...or just having really, really few other people to talk to?
> 
> I wonder whether there's any difference.

You're not mixing up cause and effect now, are you? :-P

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> (Although it does have hot-swap bays and a few 
> percent higher clock speed.)

I would like to remind all advertisers that "hot-swap" does not mean "you 
don't have to unrack the server to change the drive."   Thank you.

> I have no idea who the hell needs 144GB of RAM, but I'm not one of them 

People holding the entire database in RAM.

> Also interesting is that the HP stuff tends to give you by far the most 
> bang for your buck. 

On the occasions that it works, yes. Until it falls apart.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

Post a reply to this message

"Get ready for Windows 7. Pre-order your copy NOW!"

WTF? Last time I heard, Windows 7 is still theoretical. It won't be 
released for a decade.

Post a reply to this message

>> (Although it does have hot-swap bays and a few percent higher clock 
>> speed.)
> 
> I would like to remind all advertisers that "hot-swap" does not mean 
> "you don't have to unrack the server to change the drive."   Thank you.

Both servers have drive bays at the front that you can easily pull the 
drives out of. But only one is marked as "hot-swap". I'm presuming that 
means one has to be turned off before you pull drives. (Although 
*obviously* if I were going to actually reach into my pocket, I'd check 
first...)

>> I have no idea who the hell needs 144GB of RAM, but I'm not one of them 
> 
> People holding the entire database in RAM.

Why in the name of God would you do that? And who has a database that 
big anyway??

>> Also interesting is that the HP stuff tends to give you by far the 
>> most bang for your buck. 
> 
> On the occasions that it works, yes. Until it falls apart.

I don't follow.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> "Get ready for Windows 7. Pre-order your copy NOW!"
> 
> WTF? Last time I heard, Windows 7 is still theoretical. It won't be 
> released for a decade.

You really need to read something other than porn and Haskell blogs online.

For that matter, why would you even post something like this without at 
least looking it up with a simple google hit?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> But only one is marked as "hot-swap". I'm presuming that 
> means one has to be turned off before you pull drives. 

Two points:

One, it's probably labeled however the drive manufacturer labeled it. It's 
not like HP makes disk drives.

Two, even if you can pull the drive in and out without turning off the 
power, if the electronics don't let you reinitialize the bus, you're still 
screwed. Guess what's true about SATA?

>> People holding the entire database in RAM.
> Why in the name of God would you do that? 

Speed.

> And who has a database that big anyway??

Wall Street. AT&T. British telecom. Heck, twitter's db is probably an order 
of magnitude bigger than that.

Hell, AT&T has seven large databases, the biggest of which is something like 
330 terabytes.

>>> Also interesting is that the HP stuff tends to give you by far the 
>>> most bang for your buck. 
>>
>> On the occasions that it works, yes. Until it falls apart.
> 
> I don't follow.

HP *computers* are generally pretty crappy. HP test equipment is good, but 
the computers themselves are just assembled from whatever cheap parts they 
can buy.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

Post a reply to this message

>> "Get ready for Windows 7. Pre-order your copy NOW!"
>>
>> WTF? Last time I heard, Windows 7 is still theoretical. It won't be 
>> released for a decade.
> 
> You really need to read something other than porn and Haskell blogs online.

Who the hell *reads* porn?

(For that matter, who reads Haskell blogs apart from me? Yes, I knew 
somebody would throw this one in...)

> For that matter, why would you even post something like this without at 
> least looking it up with a simple google hit?

Given that it took MS something like 8 years to produce Vista, and 
almost nobody has upgraded to *that* yet, I'd be rather surprised if 
Windows 7 turns up any time soon, that's all.

Post a reply to this message

>> But only one is marked as "hot-swap". I'm presuming that means one has 
>> to be turned off before you pull drives. 
> 
> Two points:
> 
> One, it's probably labeled however the drive manufacturer labeled it. 
> It's not like HP makes disk drives.

Really? So what's the deal with the full-page "HP original HDs" listing 
then?

> Two, even if you can pull the drive in and out without turning off the 
> power, if the electronics don't let you reinitialize the bus, you're 
> still screwed. Guess what's true about SATA?

And let us not forget the software of course... But yeah, there's a 
whole heap of components that need to support this. I presume that 
people who design and build servers know a tad more about this than I do.

>>> People holding the entire database in RAM.
>> Why in the name of God would you do that? 
> 
> Speed.

Pretty damned expensive though, don't you think? You'd have to be, like, 
*really* desperate for speed to go to such lengths.

>> And who has a database that big anyway??
> 
> Wall Street. AT&T. British telecom. Heck, twitter's db is probably an 
> order of magnitude bigger than that.

I doubt they're going to buy an off-the-shelf HP out of a catelogue. 
Presumably they have an entire datacenter full of custom hardware to run 
that stuff.

Still doesn't explain what your "average" customer is going to want this 
for.

> HP *computers* are generally pretty crappy. HP test equipment is good, 
> but the computers themselves are just assembled from whatever cheap 
> parts they can buy.

Oh. Really? I haven't had any problems - but then, I haven't used them 
much, so...

All our printers are HP, and they seem to work quite well. (Unless some 
skinflint decides to put a SOHO printer in a busy office... no surprises 
that that doesn't work.)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Really? So what's the deal with the full-page "HP original HDs" listing 
> then?

Dunno. Maybe they make some of the parts. There's only like two factories in 
the world that make ram chips, for example.

> And let us not forget the software of course... 

That too.

> Pretty damned expensive though, don't you think? You'd have to be, like, 
> *really* desperate for speed to go to such lengths.

Not especially expensive, no. Just from a quick calculation, it's about 
$2000 for that much fast RAM here.  If that lets you make financial trades 
that save you $100K/year, why wouldn't you?

> I doubt they're going to buy an off-the-shelf HP out of a catelogue. 
> Presumably they have an entire datacenter full of custom hardware to run 
> that stuff.

Sure.

> Still doesn't explain what your "average" customer is going to want this 
> for.

For anything between a 5GB database and a 300terabyte database. :-)

> All our printers are HP, and they seem to work quite well. 

The printers are good, yes.

Actually, like all such companies, the quality fluctuates with the amount of 
bad press they get.

> (Unless some 
> skinflint decides to put a SOHO printer in a busy office... no surprises 
> that that doesn't work.)

Exactly. By the time you move up to the HP machines that are reliable enough 
to run a business on, you're spending more than the competition.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I'd be rather surprised if 
> Windows 7 turns up any time soon, that's all.

Wow. Keep digging.

Try this: go to google and type in "Windows 7 download".

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

Post a reply to this message