Hi,

I am contemplating purchasing a second hand Sun blade 1000 for personal use.
I already own a number of older SBus based UltraSparc machines and they have
always been reliable. However at work we have had three U10s die (with a
known
CPU fault)- so I am a bit wary of the newer stuff (I know that U10s are
fairly ancient
but it's all relative ;-)

I like the idea of mixing CPU speeds on the SB1000, and also the FC-AL
drives, memory expansion capability ...etc. I guess I am putting out the
feelers to see if there are any potential problems with these
machines.

Thanks and regards,
Andrew

In article <40f212cf$0$18667$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> ,
Andrew Tyson <asptysonATyahooD0TcomD0Tau> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am contemplating purchasing a second hand Sun blade 1000 for personal use.

The Blade 1000 is the absolutely best workstation from Sun I ever had.
And I've had everything from 3/60, SS1... to U60 before that.
It is silent, reliable and has the invaluable self illuminating logo.

>I like the idea of mixing CPU speeds on the SB1000, and also the FC-AL

Well, Mixing is only supported with non copper CPU:s.
I don't think Sun ever will make a better or more reliable workstation.
Even though they don't officially support 1050 or 1200MHz the motherboard
does, so in practice you can make it current.

Go for it!

/wfr
Fredrik



--
Fredrik Lundholm
dol @ ce.chalmers.se

thanks Fredrik - I appreciate the advice.

Fredrik Lundholm wrote:
> In article <40f212cf$0$18667$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> ,
> Andrew Tyson <asptysonATyahooD0TcomD0Tau> wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I am contemplating purchasing a second hand Sun blade 1000 for personal use.
>
>
> The Blade 1000 is the absolutely best workstation from Sun I ever had.
> And I've had everything from 3/60, SS1... to U60 before that.
> It is silent, reliable and has the invaluable self illuminating logo.
>
>
>>I like the idea of mixing CPU speeds on the SB1000, and also the FC-AL
>
>
> Well, Mixing is only supported with non copper CPU:s.
> I don't think Sun ever will make a better or more reliable workstation.
> Even though they don't officially support 1050 or 1200MHz the motherboard
> does, so in practice you can make it current.
>
> Go for it!
>
> /wfr
> Fredrik
>
>
>

"Andrew Tyson" <asptysonATyahooD0TcomD0Tau> writes in comp.sys.sun.hardware:
|I am contemplating purchasing a second hand Sun blade 1000 for personal use.
|I already own a number of older SBus based UltraSparc machines and they have
|always been reliable. However at work we have had three U10s die (with a
|known
|CPU fault)- so I am a bit wary of the newer stuff (I know that U10s are
|fairly ancient
|but it's all relative ;-)

U10's were also designed to be low-cost machines, more like the SB
100/150 series, not the higher-end machines like the SB 1000/2000
series.

--
__________________________________________________ ______________________
Alan Coopersmith * alanc@alum.calberkeley.org * Alan.Coopersmith@Sun.COM
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~alanc/ * http://blogs.sun.com/alanc/
Working for, but definitely not speaking for, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

> U10's were also designed to be low-cost machines, more like the SB
> 100/150 series, not the higher-end machines like the SB 1000/2000
> series.

not so cheap when you have to replace three 440MHz CPUs :-(
I do wonder whether they have sacrificed a bit of their much vaunted
reliability from older days to accommodate more entry level pricing.

My LX runs 24/7 as an Open SSH server without any problems despite
the fact that it's 10 years + old.

Regards,
AT

"Andrew Tyson" <asptysonATyahooD0TcomD0Tau> writes:

> I am contemplating purchasing a second hand Sun blade 1000 for personal use.
> I already own a number of older SBus based UltraSparc machines and they have
> always been reliable. However at work we have had three U10s die (with a
> known
> CPU fault)- so I am a bit wary of the newer stuff (I know that U10s are
> fairly ancient
> but it's all relative ;-)
>
> I like the idea of mixing CPU speeds on the SB1000, and also the FC-AL
> drives, memory expansion capability ...etc. I guess I am putting out the
> feelers to see if there are any potential problems with these
> machines.

I am a bit late to this thread. I loved my Blade 1000 (at work) when I
got it and for years afterwards. Built well, and it was the fastest
sparc I've ever had.

Now however I also have a Sun Blade 2500 (dual 1.28GHz cpus) also at
work and for my work the US-IIIi is definitely the CPU to have, so I'm
more ambivalent about the SB1000. The downside of 1000/2000 is they
were never good value, FC-AL disks - why? and actually the cpu
performance on normal (integer) workloads is not that great. I have
noticed a steep slide in the prices for SB1000 on Ebay recently, so
I've been assuming that others have noticed how much better the sparc
bang/buck is from the newer US-IIIi based machines. I think it's
because the latter has integrated on-chip memory controls, and both
1st and 2nd-level cache. The load-to-use memory latency is much lower
and this allows a much cheaper implementation to come out roughly
equal on the benchmarks with the 8MB cache US-III.

Memory expansion capability on the 1500/2500 is good, and I believe
the memory is also a faster kind than on 1000/2000.

The only place where 1000/2000 wins is if you really want to use UPA
graphics cards. They are the last of that breed (unfortunately).

Cheers

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

- anonymous correspondent

On 16 Jul 2004 16:26:44 -0400, Chris Morgan <cm@mihalis.net> wrote:
>
> Memory expansion capability on the 1500/2500 is good, and I believe
> the memory is also a faster kind than on 1000/2000.

Crucial sells 2GB DIMM's that they guarantee to work on the 1500/2500
(total of 8 GB for the 1500, 16 GB for the 2500) and they sell 4 GB
DIMM's that should work on the 1500/2500 (but at $3500 each, it could
be an expensive experiment).

>
> The only place where 1000/2000 wins is if you really want to use UPA
> graphics cards. They are the last of that breed (unfortunately).

The docs on the JBUS indicate that UPA support is possible - but there
is very little incenive to provide it - cheaper to buy someone else's card.

--

Erik Magnuson

== erikem AT speakeasy DOT net ==