Posts by dirkx

Not sure if that is still true.

If you are doing large database transactions; with fair bits of OLP or in-memory processing desirable *and* your query load is intense enough to be well in the double digit GB/Second range - then modern architectures, like the M7, provide you with a lot of bang for your buck. Investment not dissimilar; but lower power; higher peaks and less expensive inter-machine due to less kit.

And if you look at the TCO over 3 to 7 years - assuming a tyipical 2-3 hours/24hours at those type of intense loads - you are easily talking half to a quarter of the cost.

If you are doing that sort of analytic queries f24x7 - then the 4x difference in queries throughput mean that the difference gets even more extreme; half the kit and 20% of the power consumption.

* i.e. the linux equivalent of a 2x18+ core E5/2699 and 1/2 of a Tb of ram.

Re: Only sucks if you don't know what its good for.

Actually - not sure that is quite the case. I had to clean up such a thing in Italy a decade or so ago (these where old style 8mm DAT tapes and normal half inch tapes). Lighting struck, roof gone - and the current went throught the racks. No offiste, the tapes where in the same building/room hit.

I found that while all electronics, including simple light/power electrics, drives and robots where fried - that most tapes could be read after cleaning, drying and debris removal. Including the tapes which had been inside the rack at the time of the lightning strike. The tapes which could not be read where generally physically damaged - usually caused by water or, in a few cases, by the blast itself. In all fairness - we never tried to resurrect the disks by swapping their boards. So that may have been an option.