[tech] Ultra Enterprise 6000 upgrades

[Davyd Madeley]

On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 02:04 +0800, Nick Bannon wrote:

> We're flexible on that. A new clock board seems vital, but I gather we
> could, for example, take 16 or 20 x 336MHz X2560A 501-4363's or 400MHz
> CPUs, (with only 2MiB of cache in use) without changing boards.
> 
> The second option would be to buy more 501-4312 CPU memory boards -
> still an 83MHz gigaplane, but we could use the full cache of 336MHz or
> 400MHz CPUs.
> 
> Finally, we can go for a 100MHz backplane - we need 501-4882 CPU memory
> boards and could make good use of X2580A's.
> 
> So - in quantities of about 10 boards and 20 CPUs - what do you have
> available?

To my mind, we would be better served by purchasing a smaller number of
the faster components (allowing us to easily purchase more later on)
than buying a large number of the slower components (meaning that we'd
have to replace it all again).

To that effect, I would go for the boards capable of 100MHz (because
they're relatively cheap) and as many of the fastest CPUs as we can buy.
We should also look to see if we can get any sort of trade-in for the
quantity of older boards and CPUs we will now have spare, because they
will be otherwise useless to us. Even if they are only worth enough to
pay for their shipping and the shipping of the replacement parts, that
is good enough for me.

--d

-- 
Davyd Madeley

http://www.davyd.id.au/
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