Two of the previous three posts I've made about our upgraded server infrastructure have focused on performance. In the second post I talked about the performance (and reliability) benefits of going with our all-SSD architecture, while in the third post I talked about the increase in CPU performance between our old and new infrastructures. Today however, it's time to focus on power consumption. Our old server infrastructure came from a time where power consumption mattered, but it hadn't yet been prioritized. This was before Nehalem's 2:1 rule (2% perf increase for every 1% power increase), and it was before power gating. Once again I turned to our old HP DL585 server with four AMD Opteron 880s (8-cores total) as an example of just how things...
QNAP at CES : SMB Lineup Refresh and a 200TB+ SAS Storage Rack
QNAP is one of the more popular vendors in the SMB NAS space along with Synology. At CES, QNAP had a booth with samples of selected lineup members. The 1...
4 by Ganesh T S on 1/12/2012
Synology's DSM 4.0 with CloudStation : A Private Dropbox Solution
The NAS market has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years, but the hard drive shortage resulted in a weak Q4 for the NAS industry as...
3 by Ganesh T S on 1/12/2012
Quick update: more Interlagos testing
As promised in our last Opteron "Interlagos" review, we have been taking the time to deepen our understanding of AMD's newest Interlagos server platform and the "Bulldozer" architecture. Server...
30 by Johan De Gelas on 12/8/2011
Bulldozer for Servers: Testing AMD's "Interlagos" Opteron 6200 Series
Last month, AMD launched their Bulldozer architecture on desktops, and the result was rather underwhelming; however, there are plenty of indications that Bulldozer simply wasn't architected to excel at...
113 by Johan De Gelas on 11/15/2011
Netgear's Marvell Based ReadyNAS NV+ v2 Review
Netgear's ReadyNAS lineup is well respected in the sub-$5K SMB / SOHO / consumer NAS market. In November 2010, Netgear updated their Ultra lineup meant for the high-end prosumer...
38 by Ganesh T S on 11/9/2011
Facebook's "Open Compute" Server tested
Facebook had 22 Million active users in the middle of 2007; fast forward to 2011 and the site now has 800 Million active users, with 400 million of them...
63 by Johan De Gelas on 11/3/2011
AppliedMicro Announces 64-bit ARM Based X-Gene SoCs
AppliedMicro has released specifications of their upcoming X-Gene SoC (Server-on-a-Chip this time, not System). AppliedMicro X-Gene Specifications Architecture ARMv8 Cores From 2 to up to 128 Frequency Up to 3GHz Process TSMC 40/28nm Power Usage Up to 2W per core Above...
23 by Kristian Vättö on 10/28/2011
Dell Vostro V131: A Budget Business Laptop
We’ve reviewed just about every line of laptops that Dell makes over the years, but we haven’t had a chance to look at the Vostro line until today. Vostro...
50 by Jarred Walton on 10/28/2011
Rendering and HPC Benchmark Session Using Our Best Servers
Each time we publish a new server platform review, several of our readers inquire about HPC and rendering benchmarks. We're always willing to accommodate reasonable requests, so we're going...
52 by Johan De Gelas on 9/30/2011
HP Compaq 8200 Elite Ultra-Slim: The Littlest Desktop
If you've been following along for a while, it should be pretty clear that around here, we're fans of doing a little computing. Awkward turns of phrase notwithstanding, we...
40 by Dustin Sklavos on 9/29/2011
QNAP TS-659 Pro II Review
The SMB (Small to Medium Businesses) and Corporate NAS market is a highly competitive one. Over the last one year, we have been expanding our coverage of this market...
69 by Ganesh T S on 9/19/2011
Hybrid Cloud Computing gets real
Public Cloud Computing services are growing fast despite the fact that a lot of people do not fully trust them. Just look at the number of launched Amazon EC2...
24 by Johan De Gelas on 9/18/2011
Microsoft Integrating Hyper-V Into Windows 8 Client
Microsoft is beefing up virtualization support in Windows 8 with Hyper-V, writes Microsoft's Mathew John on the Building Windows 8 blog. Hyper-V was previously available in Windows Server 2008...
9 by Andrew Cunningham on 9/7/2011
HP Z210 SFF Workstation: Serious Power in Cramped Quarters
We're taking our second excursion into enterprise-class desktop territory with the kind of machine that should be of interest both to IT management and enthusiasts alike: HP's Z210 SFF...
25 by Dustin Sklavos on 8/29/2011
HP EliteBook 8760w: Color, So Dreamy
Just over ten months ago, we had a chance to take a look at a very big, reasonably impressive mobile workstation: HP's EliteBook 8740w. It sported HP's DreamColor IPS...
83 by Dustin Sklavos on 8/25/2011
Ask the Experts, Enterprise & Cloud Computing: Answers part 2
Last year we ran a little series called Ask the Experts where you all wrote in your virtualization related questions and we got them answered by experts at Intel...
9 by Johan De Gelas on 7/29/2011
Ask the Experts: Enterprise & Cloud Computing Questions Answered, Part 1
Last year we ran a little series called Ask the Experts where you all wrote in your virtualization related questions and we got them answered by experts at Intel...
14 by Johan De Gelas on 7/28/2011
Ask the Experts: Enterprise & Cloud Computing Questions Answered
Last year we ran a little series called Ask the Experts where you all wrote in your virtualization related questions and we got them answered by experts at Intel...
25 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/21/2011
Details on AMD Bulldozer: Opterons to Feature Configurable TDP
AMD’s new Bulldozer-based CPUs are just around the corner. AMD has said the release of Zambezi CPUs will happen in Q3, which means any time from now. The latest...
62 by Johan De Gelas & Kristian Vättö on 7/15/2011
Infrastructure as a Service: Benchmarking Cloud Computing
Many feel that cloud computing is just old wine in new bottles, but Infrastructure as a Service, the foundation of cloud computing, is a very interesting evolution of the...
28 by Johan De Gelas on 6/2/2011