How do you tell the difference between sb1k and the sb2k remotely,
*reliably*? I'm not free to pop over to the Netherlands today and look
at the machines themselves to tell what they are ...

(I know the sb2k name only exists because the sb1k was such a lemon
that the name itself was a curse. [I certainly curse it.] So I'm not
surprised the machines don't seem to know what they're called.)

Grovelling through prtconf -v from a sb1k and a sb2k, I can see
differences in the CPU (the sb1k comes with 600/750/900 MHz USIII, the
sb2k with 900 and up USIII+) and the hard disk (the sb1k comes with
up to 36 gig, the sb2k with 72 gig and up). But those are of course
only the defaults - a machine could easily have had either replaced,
particularly the CPU (we care more about CPU speed than local hard
disk size).

Is there a reliable way to tell the difference without physical
inspection, or is it down to detective work?


- d.

> (I know the sb2k name only exists because the sb1k was such a lemon
> that the name itself was a curse. [I certainly curse it.] So I'm not
> surprised the machines don't seem to know what they're called.)

I am interested to hear you say that the SB1K was a lemon? Can you please
expand upon this? Are there reliability issues? I was recently considering
purchasing one 2nd hand for home.
I actually posted to this NG a couple of weeks ago trying to source
opinions. AFAIK the SB1K is as good
as a SB2K because the USIIICu CPUs > 900MHz will work in the SB1K (even
though it's not supported by Sun).

Regards
AT

"Andrew Tyson" <atyson_AT_optushome_DOT_com_DOT_au> writes:

> > (I know the sb2k name only exists because the sb1k was such a lemon
> > that the name itself was a curse. [I certainly curse it.] So I'm not
> > surprised the machines don't seem to know what they're called.)
>
> I am interested to hear you say that the SB1K was a lemon? Can you please
> expand upon this? Are there reliability issues? I was recently considering
> purchasing one 2nd hand for home.
> I actually posted to this NG a couple of weeks ago trying to source
> opinions. AFAIK the SB1K is as good
> as a SB2K because the USIIICu CPUs > 900MHz will work in the SB1K (even
> though it's not supported by Sun).

"Lemon" is a bit harsh, but SB1000 was expected to be a knockout for
Sun since UltraSPARC-III was going to launch at a very high clock rate
(600Mhz!!) and had all of these high-end professional features (ECC,
more context switching support etc etc), not to mention cross-bar
switch like memory subsystem, FCAL disks.

Unfortunately the chip was late, so late in fact that the 600mhz
machines had to be pushed out the back door in the middle of the night
and flogged off on ebay (I am exaggerating for effect and the web
store launch was for the 750mhz item.

I had my company buy me an SB1000 pretty soon after it launched and it
has provided many years of sterling service, but it's never had the
performance edge I had hoped for, and for a giant 80lbs hulking
carcass of a workstation that cost $10k, shipping with a single 18k
disk is pretty lame (and you can only add one more).

Of course, for a home machine, it's still pretty nice (I am tempted
every single time one comes up on ebay

Chris
--
Chris Morgan
"Post posting of policy changes by the boss will result in
real rule revisions that are irreversible"

- anonymous correspondent