[OpenIndiana-discuss] Sun Fire

[Jim Klimov]

On 2013-06-21 19:34, Doug Hughes wrote:
> Most of the early marvell problems have been addressed with software fixes in the oracle release of solaris. I couldnt say about OI. Yes, the 4540 is better all around.

It should also be noted that X4500 were limited with 16Gb RAM officially
(I think there were modules that could push them to 32GB - maybe not);
the X4540 support 64Gb (unofficially maybe 128GB) RAM which is more
relevant for ZFS and good caching and/or for running more tasks on the
machine (which they were marketed as - server with lots of fast local
storage). Also, CPUs on X4540 have VT-X unlike X4500, so they should
run VMs better :)

I was not aware that the boxes were picky about HDDs, but we went on
to replace our Thumper's original 250Gb Seagates with 3Tb Ultrastars
with almost no hiccups (so far only one disk for testing, and it did
consistently participate in a CKSUM-mismatch on scrub, reporting 1-3
errors upon every pool scrub, though no errors on a testing pool which
covers the other 2.75Tb of the disk). Maybe the cause of the problem
was the HBA port or connector, where the original disk died earlier.

For second-hand servers, the problem may be with absent drive caddies,
so watch out to have all those in place. And it is not a box for home
use - loud as a jet ;)

//Jim