Sun SunFire v880 Loop B upgrade for disk multipathing

How to install the second fiber loop option into a Sun Microsystems SunFire V880. This is the very last option that I needed to obtain for my server, and can now be considered "Fully Loaded". I was surprised at how much faster disk throughput it. Applications open snappier as well, noticable performance gain throughout the entire system.

I ran a UnixBench routine at the end for a real world filecopy example. I have noticed that there is a slight performance hit when copying to the raid versus a a single disk. I suspect that this is because it is a smaller file that is used in the test.

Either way I'm happy, and setting up multipathing out of the solaris manual was very easy. The hardest part was disabling it on other non FC controllers, which turned out to be easy in itself.

This completes the upgrades to my V880 I set out to get when I first built it. The only thing not maxed out on this machine is the RAM, however I haven't hit the limit on the 32gigs that I have. (I have used about half of it though.)

Finding 64 1Gb Ramsticks would probably not be possible.

[victorbart]

Yeah i love this kind of non x86 hardware. My first sun machine was a IPX which is had running with debian and i had a 19inch sun monitor (Found on the loft in the dutch super computer building :P ) Later i also found a 8 speed scsi cdrom with the blocksize jumper to use with the ipx. And i allready had a alpha 150 machine but that one didn't run linux but windows nt 3.51 and 4.0 works fine with 16mb mem. Its just fun to play with different hardware platforms.

[victorbart]

The only non x86 i now have is a alpha 600mhz with 512mb mem. Personal Workstation 600a machine. I got this machine for free with disks video and scsi. So i found a working matrox mystique card 8mb for this machine and also a working lsi u2w scsi adapter. And i added a 36gb 10k scsi drive + my 32x toshiba scsi cdrom which i bought new in 1998. So the machine is up and running agian with debian 5.0 and i also had openbsd running. Need to make a video about the machine one day :)

[victorbart]

My record is with both my rack servers which run 1200+ days. 2u athlon 500 with scsi en ide and some scrap parts. Tha main fan died so it ran passief cooled :D. I replaced that machine with 1u a dl360 dual p3 800.

The power consumption is a big problem! But a DL 360 with dual p3 is pretty good in power consumption.

Thanx for subscriping :)

[victorbart]

I have had Alpha Sparc and powerpc. The most fun machine was my SUN ipx. ssh key making take a 15 seconds. And i compiled a custom kernel on it :D 40mhz 16mb and 4gb scsi hd :)

[ubbgn]

So what is the architecture of these servers!?

[upersofos]

These FC-cables can deceive (counterfeit) watchers in a way that they are ordinary USB's :D