Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (156394)	4/16/2000 1:37:00 PM
From: nolimitz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

OT: I know this doesn't apply to most here but it's timely in this market environment. From todays local paper. Id. Statesman Distraught gunman trades shots with police LA CENTER, Wash. A 52-year- old man was in critical condition Sat- urday after exchanging gunfire with Clark County sheriff's deputies out- side his home northeast of here No deputies were hurt in Friday's shooting. Robin Jensen was being treated at Portland's Legacy Emanuel Hospital. A neighbor of Jensen's, who asked that his name not be used, said Jensen was a stock market day trader and may have been distraught about the market's plunge. He added that Jensen was a super guy. He was always real friendly. According to preliminary reports, officials learned Friday afternoon that Jensen had made threats to kill him- self and any police officers who are in sight trying to intervene. Officers found Jensen in his truck and negotiated with him for about 90 minutes. Shots were exchanged after Jensen displayed a firearm in a threatening manner, Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Shea

To: calgal who wrote (156394)	4/16/2000 6:07:00 PM
From: kemble s. matter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Leigh, Hi!! SERVERS.....SERVERS.....SERVERS... The Dell PowerEdge 4400: A Departmental Powerhouse SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 2000 12:54 AM - CMP Media Apr. 14, 2000 (Network Computing - CMP via COMTEX) -- One of the most versatile servers is the departmental server. Whether you need extra headroom for future growth in a large workgroup environment or are looking to beef up your data center with additional cluster nodes, the departmental server fits the bill. But these servers haven't always gotten the attention they deserve. Many vendors try to take components from dated enterprise servers or simply try to build up a workgroup server to fill this space. Neither solution is ideal. With its recent introduction of the PowerEdge 4400, Dell Computer Corp. has done an amazing job defining what a departmental server should be. The 4400 not only incorporates cutting-edge enterprise server technology-it also offers a tremendous price-for-performance value. Four Buses, No Waiting Architecturally, Dell has pulled out all the stops on the 4400. This server is distinctive in the way Dell has segmented the PCI bus. At the heart of the I/O backplane is the quad-peer PCI bus. Typically, servers in this market use a dual-peer PCI bus configuration. Compared with Dell's class-leading enterprise server, the PowerEdge 6300 (see "Dell's PowerEdge 6300: Sharp Edge Over Network Connectivity" at www.networkcomputing.com/914/914sp2.html), the 4400 easily is the better performer. The 6300 features a dual-peer bus and lacks 64-bit PCI support. Even IBM Corp.'s Netfinity 5500 M20, the top performer in our quad-processor server tests (see "Sizing Up the Quad Squad," at www.networkcomputing.com/1019/1019f2.html), doesn't have a quad-peer bus. The quad-peer bus consists of four separate PCI buses connected by multiple memory paths. The advantages to quad-peering are the greater bandwidth of the additional PCI buses and multiple memory paths handling data more efficiently-resulting in better performance. Dell made a wise, and what I would consider the optimal, engineering call in the way it chose to segment the quad-peer bus. There's a bus for the four 64-bit 33-MHz PCI slots, one for the two 66-MHz 64-bit PCI slots, one for the on-board Ethernet and video, and one entire bus dedicated to the onboard RAID controller. The I/O backplane is tied together with dual North Bridge chipsets. Dell's quad-peer bus architecture rivals that of Sun Microsystems' dual-bus UPA (Ultra Port Architecture), with its ability to supersede the 1-GB-per-second transfer limit. The server I tested was equipped with dual 733-MHz Pentium III Coppermine processors, each of which use 256 KB of full-speed L2 cache. Additionally, the Coppermine makes use of a 133-MHz FSB (front-side bus), which contributes to the overall performance. The 4400 also shipped with 1 GB of SDRAM. The big news here is that the server supports up to 4 GB of RAM-not too shabby considering that's what the majority of quad-processor servers support. To address availability, the 4400 has the enterprise-standard redundant trio of hot-swappable 320-watt power supplies. And to keep costs low and maximize space, Dell has integrated a number of peripherals onto the motherboard, including the video and RAID con- trollers, and an Intel Pro/ 100+ NIC. High-Octane Performance Given the mediocre performance of integrated RAID controllers I've tested, my initial reaction to the 4400 having onboard RAID was less than enthusiastic. However, upon examining the unit, I was surprised and impressed to see that the 4400 actually uses an Ultra3 RAID controller-Dell calls it the PERC 3/Di. Based on Intel's I960 chipset, it's capable of 160-MB-per-second throughput. Our RAID controller had 64 MB of cache, though a 128-MB upgrade is available. Ten hot-swappable 1-inch drive bays provide storage. Our server came equipped with all 10 bays populated by 9.1-GB, 10,000-rpm Quantum Atlas Ultra 160 SCSI drives. To give this server a severe thrashing, I set up Bluecurve's Dynameasure using the Exchange workload. I decided to let the benchmark run for more than 24 hours to see if I could get the system to bomb. No luck-the system completed the benchmarks without any issues. Our 4400 actually beat out two of the three quad-processor servers from our past tests. Because the server was configured with a RAID 1 mirror on the boot drive, I decided to test the RAID functionality. I got the pair of drives working by copying a large file and then I pulled out the primary drive. Without as much as a hiccup, the system continued to run. Everything seemed fine until I decided to reboot. Following the initial reboot, the system produced errors saying it couldn't find the system files. So, I decided to make a boot disk. I ran fdisk and noticed that the remaining drive in the mirror set hadn't defaulted to the active partition. After making this quick change, I was up and running in Windows NT. I then had to reinitialize the pulled drive to return it to the mirrored set. A server just wouldn't be complete without some type of management software. Dell's OpenManage Assistant is a suite of products that includes Array Manager, IT Assistant, Resolution Assistant and Server Assistant. Focusing on network administration, I used the IT Assistant, which is intuitive and easy to use. For those who don't have network and systems management in place or don't require extensive network management, it's ideal. Send your comments on this article to Dave Fetters at dfetters@nwc.com. Vendor Information PowerEdge 4400, starts at $4,699. Available: Now. Dell Computer Corp., (800) 388-8542; fax (800) 832-4329. www.dell.com. nwc.com