<div dir="ltr"><div><a href="https://mvsevm.fsf.net">https://mvsevm.fsf.net</a> runs a bunch of historical systems on, mostly, a single RPi 4.</div><div><br></div><div>Several years ago I wrote a blog post where I giggled that I was running a Multics system at much greater than original speed on something that cost fifty bucks and was the size of a pack of cigarettes. Pretty soon I will have the time and energy to get my home file/mail/web-server migrated off its old (2008ish?) Sun x86_64 box, which is big and noisy and sucks a lot of power onto the 1L PC I bought for the purpose. At that point, finally, the overhead fan will be the loudest thing in my home office. Also when I do that the only spinning rust in systems in my house that I leave powered on (and the number of other ones is shrinking as real SCSI drives give up the ghost and are replaced by SCSI2SD) will be in my home NAS.<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at 10:20 PM steve jenkin <<a href="mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au">sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">An Old Farts Question, but answers unrestricted :)<br>
<br>
In the late 1990’s I inherited a web hosting site running a number of 300Mhz SPARC SUNs.<br>
Probably 32-bit, didn’t notice then :)<br>
<br>
Some were multi-CPU’s + asymmetric memory [ non-uniform memory access (CC-NUMA) ]<br>
We had RAID-5 on a few, probably a hardware controller with Fibre Channel SCSI disks.<br>
<br>
LAN ports 100Mbps, IIRC. Don’t think we had 1Gbps switches.<br>
<br>
Can’t recall how much RAM or the size of the RAID-5 volume.<br>
I managed to borrow from SUN a couple of drives for 2-3 months & filled all the drive bays for ‘busy time'.<br>
With 300MB drives, at most we had a few GB.<br>
<br>
Don’t know the cost of the original hardware - high six or seven figures.<br>
A single additional board with extra CPU’s & DRAM for one machine was A$250k, IIRC.<br>
<br>
TB storage & zero ’seek & latency’ with SSD are now cheap and plentiful,<br>
even using “All Flash” Enterprise Storage & SAN’s.<br>
Storage system performance is now 1000x or more, even for cheap M.2 SSD.<br>
<br>
Pre-2000, a ‘large’ RAID was GB.<br>
Where did all this new ‘important’ data come from?<br>
<br>
Raw CPU speed was once the Prime System Metric, based on an assumption of ‘balanced’ systems.<br>
IO performance and Memory size needed to match the CPU throughput for a desired workload,<br>
not be the “Rate Limiting Step”, because CPU’s were very expensive and their capacity couldn’t be ‘wasted’.<br>
<br>
I looked at specs/ benchmarks of the latest R-Pi 5 and it might be ~10,000x cheaper than the SUN machines<br>
while maybe 10x faster.<br>
<br>
I never knew the webpages/ second my machines provided,<br>
I had to focus on Application throughput & optimising that :-/<br>
<br>
I was wondering if anyone on-list has tracked the Cost/ Performance of systems over the last 25 years.<br>
With Unix / Linux, we really can do “Apples & Apples” comparisons now.<br>
<br>
I haven’t done the obvious Internet searches, any comments & pointers appreciated.<br>
<br>
============<br>
<br>
Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed<br>
No longer super-cheap, but boasts better graphics and swifter storage<br>
<<a href="https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/28/raspberry_pi_5_revealed/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/28/raspberry_pi_5_revealed/</a>><br>
<br>
~$150 + PSU & case, cooler.<br>
<br>
Raspberry Pi 5 | Review, Performance & Benchmarks<br>
<<a href="https://core-electronics.com.au/guides/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-5-review-performance-and-benchmarks/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://core-electronics.com.au/guides/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-5-review-performance-and-benchmarks/</a>><br>
<br>
Benchmark Table<br>
<<a href="https://core-electronics.com.au/media/wysiwyg/tutorials/Jaryd/pi-les-go/Benchmark_Table.png" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://core-electronics.com.au/media/wysiwyg/tutorials/Jaryd/pi-les-go/Benchmark_Table.png</a>><br>
[ the IO performance is probably to SD-Card ]<br>
<br>
64 bit, 4-core, 2.4Ghz,<br>
1GB / 2GB / 4GB / 8GB DRAM<br>
800MHz VideoCore GPU = 2x 4K displays @ 60Hz <br>
single-lane PCI Express 2.0 [ for M.2 SSD ]<br>
2x four-lane 1.5Gbps MIPI transceivers [ camera & display ]<br>
2x USB 3.0 ports,<br>
"RP1 chip reportedly allows for simultaneous 5-gigabit throughput on both the USB 3.0s now."<br>
2x USB 2.0 ports, <br>
1x Gigabit Ethernet,<br>
27W USB-C Power + active cooler (fan)<br>
<br>
============<br>
<br>
--<br>
Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design <br>
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)<br>
PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA<br>
<br>
mailto:<a href="mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au" target="_blank">sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au</a> <a href="http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin</a><br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>