Monster cruncher with 96GB RAM and 20 HDs

[Jeff Gilchrist]

This is pretty crazy, a new record has been set for digits of Pi (5 trillion digits) but even more interesting is the hardware they used, a single PC crammed with 96GB of RAM and 20 hard drives that apparently cost $18,000.

All the info described here.

Specs:

Processor
2 x Intel Xeon X5680 @ 3.33 GHz - (12 physical cores, 24 hyperthreaded)
Memory
96 GB DDR3 @ 1066 MHz - (12 x 8 GB - 6 channels) - Samsung (M393B1K70BH1)
Motherboard
Asus Z8PE-D12
Hard Drives
1 TB SATA II (Boot drive) - Hitachi (HDS721010CLA332)
3 x 2 TB SATA II (Store Pi Output) - Seagate (ST32000542AS)
16 x 2 TB SATA II (Computation) - Seagate (ST32000641AS)
Raid Controller
2 x LSI MegaRaid SAS 9260-8i
Operating System
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise x64
Built By
Shigeru Kondo

[CRGreathouse]

Windows 2008 can handle 96 GB? I'm slightly impressed -- I thought only Linux could handle that much RAM.

(searches Google)

Yep, apparently up to 2 TB:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx

I'm impressed by the motherboard; it had a lot of work to do for that cruncher.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Windows 2008 can handle 96 GB? I'm slightly impressed -- I thought only Linux could handle that much RAM.

(searches Google)

Yep, apparently up to 2 TB:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx

I'm impressed by the motherboard; it had a lot of work to do for that cruncher.

Many 64-bit operating systems can handle that much RAM, not only Windows and Linux.

The absolute size of the disk array isn't that big by modern standards. It's not that expensive these days to get a significant fraction of a petabyte.

Nonetheless, it sounds like a nice machine.


Paul

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by xilman

Many 64-bit operating systems can handle that much RAM, not only Windows and Linux.

Vista x64 can support as little as 8 GB, depending on the version.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Vista x64 can support as little as 8 GB, depending on the version.

Precisely: depending on the version. Some distributions artificially reduce the maximum supported RAM to less, sometimes much less, than the underlying OS can support.

Anyway, I was thinking more about operating systems like Solaris and the various versions of BSD. None of which are Linux, the original claim being " I thought only Linux could handle that much RAM".

Paul

[henryzz]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Vista x64 can support as little as 8 GB, depending on the version.

Vista home premium supports 16Gb and so does windows 7 home premium.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by henryzz

Vista home premium supports 16Gb and so does windows 7 home premium.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx

Er... I posted that link already.

[jinydu]

Originally Posted by xilman

Some distributions artificially reduce the maximum supported RAM to less, sometimes much less, than the underlying OS can support.

Is that intentional? Why would they do that?

[xilman]

Originally Posted by jinydu

Is that intentional? Why would they do that?

Marketing.

If you have a big machine you have to pay more to get the OS which supports it.

Paul

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by jinydu

Is that intentional? Why would they do that?

http://tutor2u.net/economics/revisio...imination.html