Re: Working on huge RAM based datasets

Oops - sorry - I confused my numbers. The opteron machine in mind *only* has
up to 64GB of RAM (e.g. HP DL585) - here's the datapage:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantdl585/index.html

Still - with *just* 64GB of RAM, that would comfortably provide for the type
of scenario I envisage. Is that still enough for your app?

The 256GB number came from something I read saying that the current crop of
64 bit chips will allow up to 256GB of RAM in principle, so it is just a
matter of time before the memory limit shoots up on these simple products.

If you are prepared to pay a bit more, already there are some big memory
options on linux:

E.g. you can have up to 192GB in an SGI Altix 350:

http://www.sgi.com/servers/altix/downloads/altix350_at_a_glance.pdf

Or up to 4 terabytes in it's bigger brother the Altix 3000 - but that's
getting a bit esoteric.

http://www.sgi.com/servers/altix/

(This won lots of awards recently)

The nice thing about the two things above is that they run linux in a single
address space NUMA setup, and in theory you can just bolt on more CPUs and
more RAM as your needs grow.

Thanks,
Andy

----- Original Message -----
From: "J. Andrew Rogers" <jrogers(at)neopolitan(dot)com>
To: "Andy Ballingall" <andy_ballingall(at)bigfoot(dot)com>
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] Working on huge RAM based datasets

> On Fri, 2004-07-09 at 02:28, Andy Ballingall wrote:
> > After all, we're now seeing the first wave of 'reasonably priced' 64 bit
> > servers supported by a proper 64 bit OS (e.g. linux). HP are selling a 4
> > Opteron server which can take 256GB of RAM, and that starts at $10000
(ok -
> > they don't give you that much RAM for that price - not yet, anyway!)
>
>
> Which server is this?! They are selling an Opteron system that can hold
> 256 GB of RAM?
>
> I looked on their site, and couldn't find anything like that. I run
> some MASSIVE memory codes that don't need a lot of CPU, and if such a
> box existed, I'd be very interested.
>
> cheers,
>
> j. andrew rogers
>
>
>
----- Original Message -----
From: "J. Andrew Rogers" <jrogers(at)neopolitan(dot)com>
To: "Andy Ballingall" <andy_ballingall(at)bigfoot(dot)com>
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 10:40 PM
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] Working on huge RAM based datasets

> On Fri, 2004-07-09 at 02:28, Andy Ballingall wrote:
> > After all, we're now seeing the first wave of 'reasonably priced' 64 bit
> > servers supported by a proper 64 bit OS (e.g. linux). HP are selling a 4
> > Opteron server which can take 256GB of RAM, and that starts at $10000
(ok -
> > they don't give you that much RAM for that price - not yet, anyway!)
>
>
> Which server is this?! They are selling an Opteron system that can hold
> 256 GB of RAM?
>
> I looked on their site, and couldn't find anything like that. I run
> some MASSIVE memory codes that don't need a lot of CPU, and if such a
> box existed, I'd be very interested.
>
> cheers,
>
> j. andrew rogers
>
>
>