AMD-64 large memory...

[dsavage at peaknet.net]

On Sun, 2005-03-06 at 10:11 +0800, Jyh-Shyong Ho wrote:
> Robert L Cochran wrote:
> > It's quite true I can't afford one of these babies. But it still
> > leads me to another question. Where could I go to be shown how to
> > build, configure, and test these systems? Or are they pretty much
> > the same as consumer systems -- I've built 3 single processor
> > systems for home use. Would these be the same, except one installs
> > more CPUs, heat sinks, and memory. Or does it take specialized
> > knowledge?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Bob
>
> Hi,
>
> We built a 4-way Opteron server with TYAN mother board and 32GB RAM
> last September, we used SuSE 9.1 for AMD64, it costed about 30,000
> US$.  The procedure is the same as for installing sngle and dual
> Opteron system, no special knowledge is needed (at least in this
> case, or perhaps we were just lucky).  When all components are
> properly installed,  SuSE installer  picked up the right kernel and
> drivers for this 4-way system, the system has been
> running continuously since then..

Dr. Ho has probably trumped all of us here by actually having done this.
In theory it shouldn't be all that different from building any other high
end system, except it would cost up to ten times as much. I would expect
the biggest challenges would be hardware: (1) finding a suitable power
supply (supplies?), (2) finding an enclosure that could channel enough air
across the board to keep it cool, and (3) finding the 4G memory parts.

I'll be waiting a few more months until AMD releases dual-core Opterons
before I try upgrading to a more affordable quad system with two sockets.

-- Doc
Robert G. (Doc) Savage, BSE(EE), CISSP, RHCE | Fairview Heights, IL
RHEL4/ES on Tyan S2468UGN w/3G, dual Athlon MP 2800+, 1.1T RAID5
"Perfection is the enemy of good enough."
                         -- Admiral of the Fleet Sergei G. Gorshkov